Dictionary

gin blossom en · NOUN

Meanings

1. (slang) Vascular rosacea caused or exacerbated by excessive consumption of alcohol.
   • "Red Monkey": a Hundi slur, originally an allusion to the gin-blossom-encrusted faces of British colonial administrators 1993 November, “Naked City”, in Spy, page 26:
   • That bohunk bastard has the biggest gin blossom I've ever seen. 2019, Laini Giles, Bathing Beauty:
   • One man had a gin blossom nose and a huge gut, another piercing blue eyes set off by deep-set wrinkles. 2010, Jeania Kimbrough, Van Diemen at 17, page 241:
   • What a gin blossom is literally — what it symbolizes, I suppose, is loss of control. 2019, Adam Dolgins, The Big Book of Rock & Roll Names, page 1994:
   • Sunny couldn't possibly have thought my mother would be better off staying at Café Divorcée with nothing to show for it but gray roots and a gin blossom. 2021, Ed Tarkington, The Fortunate Ones:
2. A female alcoholic.
   • Vera Maude had seen him in photos, the sweet little gin blossom standing next to the droopy old sourpuss. 2015, Michael Januska, Border City Blues 2-Book Bundle: Riverside Drive / Maiden Lane:
   • Now, what do you say, my little gin blossom? 2014, Suzanne Hayes, Loretta Nyhan, Empire Girls, page 159:
   • She was an alcoholic old biddy, a "gin blossom”, who was venturing out on the streets past 10:00 PM alone because she had to get another bottle, to hold her over until morning, when she would probably go and get another bottle. 2003, Steven H. Propp, Beyond Heaven and Earth, page 600:
3. A cocktail composed of gin and fruit juice (usually peach, apricot, orange, and/or lime).
   • Hastily she poured another gin blossom. 1961, Charles Beardsley, The Naked Hills: Some Tales of Afghanistan, page 212:
   • He pressed a gin blossom in Virginia's hand as she sat in a green chair, crossed her legs, and dialed the house phone. 2013, Ace Atkins, Devil's Garden:
   • If mother could see me now, I grinned as I sipped a gin blossom from a teacup and watched Mabel shake her pert little derriere to the accompaniment of a ukulele pounding out “When the Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabam'.” 2018, Melanie Benjamin, The Girls in the Picture:
   • Reagan, perhaps because of his father's severe alcoholism, was not much of drinker, preferring a weak gin blossom at the White House when the occasion called for coctails. 2005, Steven F. Hayward, Greatness:
4. A metaphoric flower associated with heavy drinking.
   • In the case of Mrs. Mollie Carroll and Randy Thomas, the flower of romance was a gin blossom. 1934, Mark Hellinger, The Ten Million:
   • In 2003, the World Literature Forum was held in Budapest, Germany, a lovely, romantic seaside city that is perfectly suited for such a gathering, particularly in the spring with the gin blossoms are in full bloom. 2010, Michael Kun, Corrections to my Memoirs:
   • "Well, I suppose you want a drop of gin for that thing?" she said. "Hand it over; I am very fond of flowers." "Specially gin blossoms," said the costermonger, in a rather loud whisper. 1869, Jenny's Geranium, page 64:
   • Instead, the City of Angels, that ever-metastasizing concrete gin blossom of on-ramps and off-ramps built over prehistoric tar pits, deflowered her. 2003, Ian Philips, Satyriasis: Literotica 2, page 94:

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