bottled moonshine
Preserved but no longer current.
Meaning · English
Social and benevolent schemes, such as Utopia, Coleridge's Pantiso- cracy, the dreams of Owen, Fourier, St. Simon, the New Republic, and so on.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “bottled moonshine” mean?
Social and benevolent schemes, such as Utopia, Coleridge's Pantiso- cracy, the dreams of Owen, Fourier, St. Simon, the New Republic, and so on.
Is “bottled moonshine” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.