Chapter ARCOT to ARRACK of A by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

But it has spread to very remote corners of Asia. Thus it is used in the forms ariki and arki in Mongolia and Manchuria, for spirit distilled from grain. In India it is applied to a variety of common spirits; in S. India to those distilled from the fermented sap of sundry palms; in E. and N. India to the spirit distilled from cane-molasses, and also to that from rice. The Turkish form of the word, raki, is applied to a spirit made from grape-skins; and in Syria and Egypt to a spirit flavoured with aniseed, made in the Lebanon. There is a popular or slang Fr. word, riquiqui, for brandy, which appears also to be derived from araki (Marcel Devic). Humboldt (Examen, &c., ii. 300) says that the word first appears in Pigafetta’s Voyage of Magellan; but this is not correct.

c. 1420.—“At every yam (post-house) they give the travellers a sheep, a goose, a fowl….‘arak.…”— Shah Rukh’s Embassy to China, in N. & E., xiv. 396.

1516.—“And they bring cocoa-nuts, hurraca (which is something to drink).…”— Barbosa, Hak. Soc. 59.

1518.—“—que todos os mantimentos asy de pão, como vinhos, orracas, arrozes, carnes, e pescados.”— In Archiv. Port. Orient., fasc. 2, 57.

1521.—“When these people saw the politeness of the captain, they presented some fish, and a vessel of palm-wine, which they call in their language uraca.…”— Pigafetta, Hak. Soc. 72.

1544.—“Manueli a cruce.…commendo ut plurimum invigilet duobus illis Christianorum Carearum pagis, diligenter attendere.…nemo potu Orracae se inebriet…si ex hoc deinceps tempore Punicali Orracha potetur, ipsos ad mihi suo gravi damno luituros.”— Scti. Fr. Xav. Epistt., p. 111.

1554.—“And the excise on the orraquas made from palm-trees, of which there are three kinds, viz., cura, which is as it is drawn; orraqua, which is çura once boiled (cozida, qu. distilled?); sharab (xarao) which is boiled two or three times and is stronger than orraqua.”— S. Botelho, Tombo, 50.

1563.—“One kind (of coco - palm) they keep to bear fruit, the other for the sake of the çura, which is vino mosto; and this when it has been distilled they call orraca.”—Garcia D’O.t, f. 67. (The word sura, used here, is a very ancient importation from India, for Cosmas (6th century) in his account of the coco-nut, confounding (it would seem) the milk with the toddy of that palm, says: “The Argellion is at first full of a very sweet water, which the Indians drink from the nut, using it instead of wine. This drink is called rhoncosura, and is extremely pleasant.” It is indeed possible that the rhonco here may already be the word arrack).

1605.—“A Chines borne, but now turned Iauan, who was our next neighbour.…and brewed Aracke which is a kind of hot drinke, that is vsed in most of these parts of the world, instead of Wine…”— E. Scot, in Purchas, i. 173.

1631.—“.… jecur….a potu istius maledicti Arac, non tantum in temperamento immutatum, sed etiam in substantiâ suâ corrumpitur.”— Jac. Bontius, lib. ii. cap. vii. p. 22.

1687.—“Two jars of Arack (made of rice as I judged) called by the Chinese Samshu [Samshoo].”— Dampier, i. 419.

1719.—“We exchanged some of our wares for opium and some arrack.…”— Robinson Crusoe, Pt. II.

1727.—“Mr Boucher had been 14 Months soliciting to procure his Phirmaund; but his repeated Petitions….had no Effect. But he had an Englishman, one Swan, for his Interpreter, who often took a large Dose of Arrack….Swan got pretty near the King (Aurungzeb)….and cried with a loud Voice in the Persian Language that his Master wanted Justice done him” (see DOAI).— A. Hamilton, i. 97.

Rack is a further corruption; and rack-punch is perhaps not quite obsolete.

1603.—“We taking the But-ends of Pikes and Halberts and Faggot-sticks, drave them into a Racke-house.”— E. Scot, in Purchas, i. 184.

Purchas also has Vraca and other forms; and at i. 648 there is mention of a strong kind of spirit called Rack-apee (Malay api= ‘fire’). See FOOL’S RACK.

1616.—“Some small quantitie of Wine, but not common, is made among them; they call it Raack, distilled from Sugar and a spicie Rinde of a Tree called Iagra [Jaggery].”— Terry, in Purchas, ii. 1470.

1622.—“We’ll send him a jar of rack by next conveyance.”— Letter in Sainsbury, iii. 40.

1627.—“Java hath been fatal to many of the English, but much through their own distemper with Rack.”— Purchas, Pilgrimage, 693.

1848.—“Jos…finally insisted upon having a bowl of rack punch….That bowl of rack punch was the cause of all this history.”— Vanity Fair, ch. vi.