The Origin of Toasting.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 15, 10 April 1902, Page 13

The Origin of Toasting.

The origin of the word ' toast ' in drinking a health is interesting. The drinks most in use in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were sack, canary, claret sherry, and others, to which it was customary to add honey, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, and other ingredients ; also a piece of toast, which floated on the top 6f the liquor, and was supposed to give it an additional flavor. Later on, in the eighteenth century, Dr. Johnson relates : — A certain beau, being at Bath, pledged a noted beauty in a glass of water taken from a bath ; whereupon another roysterer cried out that he would have nothing to do with the liquor, but would have the toast— that is, the lady herself.' From this incident, it is said, arose the habit of giving a lady's name to preface or flavor the drinking of wine. Hence a popular lady whose health was often drunk became a ' toast,' or ' a great toast.' Later the word has come to mean any sentiment which prefaces a drink. So says the ' Daily Chronicle.'