NATIONAL NAME YOUR POISON DAY
National Name Your Poison Day on June 8th places a few options before you and challenges you to choose. In this case, the idiom can be a cautionary one or it could be your bartender’s way of asking you what you want to drink.
Daily National Republican in Washington, D.C. reported in its March 24, 1864 edition, “The latest fashion in Washington of asking a party what they will take to drink is – ‘Please nominate your poison, gentlemen.'” The story made its rounds to newspapers across the country and by 1867 writers attributed the colloquial term to folks in Indiana.
While “nominate your poison” harkens back to the early days of the temperance movement, the phrase seems to have been used mostly to describe the action of ordering the drink. Even in 1914 as the mayor of New Bavaria, Ohio proposed a law requiring all drinkers to apply for drinking licenses, the phrase was popular. The phrase comes in many forms – pick, choose, or name – and of course nominate your poison.
Simple enough fellow forum members. Please nominate your favorite poison.
For me, I'd take a White Russian. No offense intended.
