Liquor = wine and/or beer?

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

Lynne Murphy wrote:

>LIQUOR1 -->  LIQUOR2/SPIRITS    WINE    BEER    CIDER
>LIQUOR2 -->  SCOTCH GIN VODKA  BOURBON  ... >>

 Like Larry Horn, I don't have the first rule, only the second.

>Actually, I can give you an example of 'liquor' meaning 'wine and
>spirits (not beer)'.  A certain member of my family gave up 'liquor'
>because he couldn't handle it (won't even eat something in a wine
>sauce), but he still drinks beer (he finds it easier to slow down
>when drinking too much beer, I take it).

Since Lynne does not give us a direct quote, it is somewhat difficult to
analyze the meaning that this family member assigns to the word LIQUOR, but
in any case the example is not convincing because the fact that he or she
gave up wine together with spirits (while continuing to drink beer) could
just be taken to mean that he or she gave up LIQUOR as well as WINE, but just
didn't bother to mention WINE, since LIQUOR was the central problem.

I once heard a woman say that her husband had given up "drinking"; when I
pointed out to her that he still consumed about a dozen cans of beer a day,
she responded that by "drinking" she meant "drinking liquor." It seems to me
that this is a highly idiosyncratic usage, even though she used "drinking"
that way. Lynne's example (and her first rule) strike me as idiosyncratic (as
they would, e.g., the authors of the dictionary entry for LIQUOR in the one
dictionary I consulted, the new AMERICAN HERITAGE, which tells us that LIQUOR
is distilled, not merely fermented).