hellbrew

Noun

1. A horrible liquid mixture.
   • The only virtue of tequila, so far as I know, is cheapness. It has no flavour. It stupefies more quickly and more cheaply than any hellbrew I have yet encountered. - 1960, Stephen Lister [pen name; Digby George...
   • No one has spoken, and indeed written, more fiercely than I against the farmers who bedew their fields with ingenious hellbrews, neither knowing nor caring whether goldfinches will suffer from the shortage of thistles...
   • While she was heating and churning the hellbrew in a double boiler, her sight began to fade. - 1980, Alfred Bester, Golem¹⁰⁰, New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 147:
2. A hellish mess.
   • But—known only to a handful of Hasbrouck Heights residents—the shadow of her finger thrusts down through a dozen years to stir two lives into a hellbrew. - 1934 June 19, Bergen Evening Record, volume XXXX, number 12...
   • As frequently used, Fascism signifies anything you want, as long as it is not openly favoring Communism. Communists in Toronto call the Quebec Catholic social program “Fascist,” or to be more precise, a Fascist...
   • Cheery hellbrew of cops, dames, gats and slugging. - 1952 January 30, Punch, page 186: