loggerhead was an iron rod used in the making of flip, a popular colonial-era heated beverage. The rod ranged in length from approximately 50–125 cm (eighteen inches to four feet), and in form it resembled a fireplace poker. The working end was often thicker than the shaft and at times featured a small, bulbous head resembling a small onion.
The loggerhead was initially employed by early shipbuilders to keep the tar used for seam sealing warm and pliable; the rod was placed in a fire until red-hot and then used to stir the tar. Via an uncertain route, the loggerhead made its way into taverns, where it was employed in the heating of drinks. Tavern historian Alice Morse Earle wrote that loggerheads were “as much a part of the chimney furniture of an old time New England tavern and farmhouse as the bellows or andirons.” Flip was among the most popular drinks made with loggerheads and typically consisted of rum, beer, and molasses. In 1868 the poet James Lowell celebrated the sound of the loggerhead as it performed its duties:
Here dozed a fire of beechen logs, that bred Strange fancies in its embers golden-red, And nursed the loggerhead whose hissing dip, Timed by nice instinct, creamed the mug of flip.
When tavern discussions became overly animated, tavern-goers would at times grab the loggerheads and employ them as cudgels. As such, these implements live on in a somewhat feral fashion in the oft-used but little understood term “at loggerheads.”
Other names for the loggerhead include flip iron, flip dog, and hottle.
See also flip.
Earle, Alice Morse. Stage-Coach and Tavern Days. New York: Macmillan, 1900.
By: Wayne Curtis