I realised recently that sometimes I use the word 'pokey' to describe a beer (or other alcoholic drink) that is especially strong-tasting or alcoholic.The thing is, I don't know when and where I picked up this word. My brother doesn't use it; my girlfriend, who grew up not too far from the town where I went to university, doesn't either. They both seemed surprised when I used 'pokey' in conversation to describe a particular beer, although they understood my intended meaning from the context of the sentence.
I would suspect that this usage of 'pokey' was unique to me, except that I've found on the internet a few instances of other people also using the word to mean strong or alcoholic. One poster on a British discussion board refers to Singha as having been "a very full flavoured pokey beer", for example.
So my question is: do you use 'pokey' to mean (or are you familiar with it being used to mean) strong and/or alcoholic? If so, can you shed some light on its usage?
NB 'Pokey' is also more commonly used to mean small or cramped, which means I could drink a pokey beer in a pokey pub... Oh, and it's worth mentioning that 'pokey' could easily be spelt 'poky'.
