Adam's ale Adam's ale Adam's ale (also referred to as "Adam's wine", especially in Scotland; sometimes simply called "Adam") is a colloquial allusion meaning water. It alludes to the idea that the biblical Adam had only water to drink. This inference gained popularity around the beginning of the 19th-century temperance movement. "Adam's ale" means unadulterated water, based on the presumption that the biblical first man Adam had only water to drink in the Garden of Eden. Common variations are "Adam's wine" in Scotland, and sometimes simply "Adam". The phrase is an allusion, colloquialism, epithet, and idiom. In common use until the mid-
Ale Houses Act 1551 35 of the Alehouse Act 1828 (9 Geo.4 c.61). Ale Houses Act 1551 The Ale Houses Act 1551 (5 & 6 Edw. 6 c. 25), or "An Act for Keepers of Ale-houses to be bound by Recognisances", sometimes the Licensing Act 1551, was an Act of the Parliament of England passed in 1552. It was passed to control the "abuses and disorders as are had and used in common ale-houses", and laid the foundation of modern licensing law. It provided that the Justices of the Peace were given power within their jurisdiction to stop the common selling of ale and