Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 October 1901 — STORY OF ITS ORIGIN. [ARTICLE]

STORY OF ITS ORIGIN.

Where a “Horn," Meaning a Drink of Whisky, Comes From. The customer wore the slouch hat and drooping mustache affected bywesterners and soutbwesterners, says the New York Times; the bartender presented the impassive Teutonic front that had evidently come from & determination to quit being surprised. “Gimme me a horn,” quoth the customer. “A vat?” “A born; don’t you know what • ffiorn’ is?” “No; it is a mixed drink; yes?” “No; it’s just plain whisky, that’s all, and I don’t want to wait all day. Never mind the water.” j “Curious,” commented the westerner, “how people in this section can’t understand plain English. Anybody down in Kentucky knows what a ‘horn’ is, and how it got its name. “How did it get its name?” inquired a bystander. “Well, along about 100 years ego the first distillery ever established in Tennessee was set up in Davidson county. It was called the ‘Red Heifer,’ and the customers who assembled at the still, especially on Saturday afternoon, todrink and gamble, ’ got in the habit of speaking of a dram j as a ‘horn of the heifer.’ As Tennes-j see was the first state to be settled west of the Alleghanies, the phrase spread all over the west and south- ! west, finally being contracted into the single word thorn.’ ”