dram , originally a liquid measure equaling one-eighth of an ounce (3.7 ml), saw its meaning extended by the late 1500s to encompass any single dose of liquid taken medicinally. Since such things were often spirituous, by the 1620s or so the term was being applied to any single serving of spirits, whether medicinal or recreational. This soon led to it being stretched again to cover the spirit being served. Thus in 1666 the Virginia Assembly, setting regulations for the colony, divided spirits into locally made “Virginia drams” (e.g., peach brandy), imported grape brandy, and English spirits.
A century later, we find the Pennsylvania German farmer-distiller Friedrich H. Gelwicks recording sales of “ebbeldram” (i.e., apple dram) and “korntram” (korn dram), by which he meant rye whisky. By then, in America at least, “dram shop” was a common, somewhat pejorative, synonym for tavern, while a “dram drinker” was a habitual or even degenerate spirits drinker. As a result of these negative connotations, the term eventually fell out of American usage. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, however, “dram” is still used, generally with affection, for a glass of spirit.
Like the modern “shot,” which covers roughly the same lexical territory, a dram was elastic in quantity. One can nonetheless posit that most drinks to which the term was applied would fall into a range of 15–75 ml.
See also peach brandy and whisky, rye.
Henning, William W. The Statutes at Large … of Virginia, vol. 2. New York: 1823.
By: David Wondrich