depth charge

[GEORGE THOMPSON]

My own recollection of "depth charge" is the same as Lynne's: a shot
glass full of whiskey dropped into a glass of beer.  (I have never
had one, though, nor seen one concocted.)   I would think it
difficult to get a full shot glass into an empty beer glass without
spilling, or to pour whisky into a shot glass placed at the bottom of
a beer glass without splashing.  Further, the name requires dropping
the whisky into the beer so that it sinks to the bottom, a depth
charge being an explosive released from a ship above a submarine.
I believe that depth charges are set to explode at a certain level
of water pressure, whatever will be found at the depth where the
submarine is floating.

As for the question as to whether bourbon dropped into beer is less
disgusting than schnapps, I'll leave that to others to decide.

GAT

Date:
  Fri, 31 Mar 2000 13:02:40 +0100 Reply-to:      American Dialect
Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> From:          Lynne Murphy
<lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK> Subject:       depth charge To:
ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU

Andrea Vine said:
>
> A depth charge is a mug of beer with a shotglass full of schnapps in the bottom
> of it.  So a depth bomb must be a different drink entirely.

Where I went to college (UMass, aka ZooMass), a depth charge was a mug of beer
with a shot glass of whiskey (usually bourbon) dropped into it.  The combination
of schnapps and beer sounds a bit disgusting to me...

Lynne