haut gout

French haut goût, from haut (“high”), goût (“taste”).

haut gout (uncountable)

1. (archaic) A slight taint of decay, particularly in wild game meat, that used to be considered desirable; approximately, gaminess.
   • 1854, Brantz Mayer, Theodore Canot, Captain Canot‎:

     In a word, Joseph had the same taste for a full-blooded cuffee, that an epicure has for the haut gout of a stale partridge, and was in ecstasies at my extrication.

   • 1907, Lewis Melville, Farmer George, volume 2, page 143:

     The merchants began to snuff the cadaverous haut goût of lucrative war; the freighting business never was so lively, on account of the prodigious taking up for transport service: great orders for provisions of all kinds, new clothing for the troops, puts life into the woollen manufactures.

2. (dated) A strong, desirable flavor to be relished; piquancy.

• hogo