The idiom name your poison (and its many variations) actually carries two completely different meanings depending on which verb you use. Whether you are ordering a drink at a bar or making a terrible decision, the context changes everything.
1. “Name Your Poison” (Ordering a Drink)
When someone asks, “Name your poison,” or “What’s your poison?” they are playfully asking what kind of alcoholic beverage you would like to drink. It is a casual, informal phrase usually used by a bartender or a host offering to pour you a glass or hand you a bottle.
2. “Pick Your Poison” (The Bad Choice)
Over time, the variations “pick your poison” and “choose your poison” took on a broader, potentially more negative meaning. Today, “pick your poison” more often means having to choose between two or more unpleasant, undesirable, or equally bad options.
It is also frequently used when someone is asked to select from a variety of illicit, dangerous, or unseemly options. (Because of the catchy alliteration, “pick your poison” is far more popular today than “choose your poison.”)
Any of the variations can be used for any of the above senses, however.
Origin: Why Do We Call Alcohol “Poison”?
Researchers sometimes wonder whether this idiom comes from the ancient Latin word for drink, potio. However, there is no need to overthink it: the phrase is simply a playful, self-aware joke that dates back to the mid-1800s.
Some people today mistakenly assume that people in the 19th century had no idea alcohol was bad for them. In reality, the medical dangers of habitual drinking were well-documented, and the booming Temperance movement frequently referred to liquor as the “drink of the devil” or outright “poison.”
Therefore, when bar patrons in the 1860s asked each other to “nominate your poison” or “name your poison,” they were being cheeky. They were playfully acknowledging that they were about to partake in a known vice.
The “Nominate” Variation
Modern readers often stumble over early historical citations of the phrase “nominate your poison,” simply because the word nominate sounds so formal, bureaucratic, and political to our modern ears.
However, its original meaning from the 1500s was simply “to call or mention by name.” During the 19th century, using “nominate” as a direct, everyday synonym for “name” was still a fairly common practice.
When a bartender or a friend in 1864 asked a patron to “nominate your poison,” they were not asking for a formal candidate to be put up for a vote. They were quite literally just saying, “Name your drink.”
A 19th-Century Misunderstanding
If there is any doubt that this phrase was originally meant as a joke, we can look at contemporary literature from the era. Because the idiom was a bit cheeky, it occasionally caused genuine confusion even back in the 1800s.
In the 1872 publication The Dayspring, a character named Kingsley overhears a man named Jim at a hotel bar telling his friend to “nominate your poison,” before they both take a glass of whisky. Kingsley later confronts Jim, thoroughly confused by the literal language:
“But I heard you say something to a man who was there, which I cannot understand; for you said to him, ‘nominate your poison,’ and I saw both of you taking whisky. Now, was that the poison you meant?“
Jim the ostler reacts exactly how a modern person would when a joke falls flat. He laughs “shamefacedly” and explains the slang to Kingsley: “Of course I simply wanted to know what my friend would drink, by asking him, in fun, to name his poison.”
This little anecdote perfectly illustrates that even at the height of its early popularity, the phrase was always recognized as a playful, self-aware piece of slang.
A favorite joke of the era, upon being asked to “name one’s poison” was to reply something like, “I never drink anything stronger than whiskey.”
Television and Movie Citations
The alcoholic drink version of the idiom, name your poison, is often used by bartenders or friends offering a drink but the meanings are quite apparent and non-variable. However, because the “pick your poison” variation is so closely associated with choosing between illicit or dangerous options, screenwriters use it constantly in action movies and thrillers. It’s the perfect phrase for a scene where a character is selecting weapons, stolen goods, or facing a grim reality.
- The Illicit Selection: In the action film Fast & Furious (2009), the phrase is used when a character is offered their choice of impounded vehicles: “Let me guess, winner gets the slot. All right, so these are all the imports the city has in impound.” / “Okay, nice. Pick your poison.” / “Okay, so which one do you want?” / “I want them all.”
- The Arsenal: In the vampire action movie Blade: Trinity (2004), a character uses it when offering an array of deadly, specialized weaponry: “This little pea shooter, it’s a modified version of the Army’s objective individual combat weapon. Pick your poison, sun dogs, stakes, heat-seeking mini rockets.”
- The Inescapable Misery: In the psychological thriller Barton Fink (1991), the phrase is used to describe an oppressive, inescapable heatwave, implying there is no comfortable option: “This kind of heat. It’s pathetic.” / “Well, I guess you pick your poison. So they say.”