1 Answer. Dutch courage: This idiom alludes to the reputed heavy drinking of the Dutch, and was first referred to in Edmund Wallers Instructions to a Painter (1665): “The Dutch their wine, and all their brandy lose, Disarmd of that from which their courage grows.”.

Why is drinking alcohol called Dutch courage?

It is believed that it is then that the term Dutch courage was coined. Either because the English soldiers drank before a battle to fight the fear with Dutch gin, or because they saw the Dutch soldiers drink jenever and witnessed the bravery with which they fought after it.