Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
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First published 2005 (SND, online supplement).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
SCREWTAP, n.comb. A bottle of beer with a screwtop.Gsw. 1992 Jeff Torrington Swing Hammer Swing! (1993) 355:
... on the sofa giving it the big zeez after a liquid lunch of a double-double whisky and a couple of stout screwtops which was his customary chaser after his session in the Dog, of course.Gsw. 1997 Herald (6 Jun) 21:
It was an old-fashioned kind of place, all haufs and screwtaps and bunnets.Gsw. 2000 Ian Pattison A Stranger Here Myself (2001) 67:
... we only sense these things in our higher moments when, let’s say for argument’s sake we’re pished and can rise above the fray." Father took a long glug from the screwtop.Sc. 2001 Daily Mail (8 Dec) 87:
The wee fella from Chewin’ The Fat, Ford Kiernan, had obviously left his sense of humour behind in the TV studio and ended up, as they say in the Clydeside patois, being wannered ower the heid wi’ a screwtap wielded by somebody he’d upset.Sc. 2002 Sunday Herald (29 Dec) 1:
The pint-sized bottles with the green labels were called screw tops and were a powerful icon to me. (I still come over all sentimental at Matt McGinn's wonderful parody "screwtaps keep falling on my head''.) The business of collecting and returning the empty screwtops and the smaller blue-labelled beer bottles to the off-licence provided a substantial source of post-Hogmanay income to us urchins.Sc. 2003 Herald (9 Aug) 3:
This was a time when the vast expanses of the terraces could comfortably accommodate those who left the pub at closing time and sought asylum for a couple of hours before they opened again. The bonhomie of these occasions was encouraged by the partaking of an impertinent fortified wine or the imbibing of that local delicacy, The ScrewTap.
