Swill is a fictional low-price mineral water popularized in the mid-1970s by a spoof commercial starring then-Saturday Night Live cast member Bill Murray. Swill prided itself on being "the only water that's dredged, from Lake Erie." According to Murray's endorsement, Swill was the only thing that could "wash down a hearty meal...that tends to just lay in your stomach." The advertisement also featured footage of Swill employees bottling their product in the lake, and of Murray pouring the viscous, dirt-filled concoction over ice, telling us "...I like mine with a twist." A closeup at the end shows the bottle is a parody of the one used for Perrier.
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Swill can also be used to refer to any cheap, usually poor-tasting beverage, especially beer or liquor of many kinds. This usage is likely derived from the term pig-swill, which is a generic term for waste products mixed together into pig feed. Pigs are notoriously undiscriminating in their eating habits.
