firewater

fire +‎ water, a calque of a Native American language term, probably Ojibwe ishkodewaaboo (“alcohol”), from ishkode (“fire”) + aaboo (“liquid”, glossed in older works as “water”). A number of other Algonquian and Siouan languages also refer to whiskey with compounds that mean "fire-water".

firewater (countable and uncountable, plural firewaters)

1. (informal) High-proof alcohol, especially whiskey (especially in the context of its sale to or consumption by Native Americans).
   • 2012, Tom Lamont, How Mumford & Sons became the biggest band in the world (in The Daily Telegraph, 15 November 2012)

     Four polite Englishmen in their middle 20s, feigning like firewater drunks in a Eugene O'Neill play: it's exactly the stuff that makes their detractors groan.

2. High-temperature hydraulic condensate discharged from industrial boilers.
3. (manufacturing) Water for use in firefighting.
   • 1981, Energy Progress‎, page 205:

     A continuously circulated firewater line supplies a deluge cooling system in each gathering center for fire containment.

   • 2015 March 18, Karen Caffarini, “Cause of line break unknown at BP”, in Post-Tribune‎:

     A break in a firewater line at BP Whiting Refinery caused water with an oil-like sheen to spread outside the refinery's walls along a section of Indianapolis Boulevard Tuesday night.