zoedone

alternative Zoedone

1. uncountableA non-alcoholic beverage, apparently carbonated, manufactured for a time in the 1880s as part of the temperance movement.

   The feminine element on board meantime gratefully appreciated our creature comforts—such as preserved ginger, gingerbread, hot-water bottle, jam, biscuits, and zoedone.

   1886, Annie Robina Butler, Glimpses of Maori Land, page 6

   2 more examples

   It was proved that the liquid of which the officers had partaken was Zoedone, and not champagne. Well, after all, many other folks besides these detectives have paid their five shillings a bottle for much worse stuff than Zoedone, and have plumed themselves on the excellent quality of their champagne, without being any nearer a true knowledge of what they were drinking.

   1881 February, “Temperance Notes”, in Methodist Temperance Magazine, page 95

   There was no zoedone or temperance sherry in those days, else we should have thought he might have been imbibing those enlivening drinks.[…]It really was just as like thirty-four port as zoedone is like a beaker of champagne, dry, but not too dry.

   1888, “William Powell Frith, R.A.”, in The Living Age, volume LXI (fifth series), page 296