I taste a liquor never brewed by Emily Dickinson

No — it's about that exhilarating feeling of being in nature on a gorgeous summer day. Dickinson employs the extended metaphor of intoxication to convey a joy so profound that it feels like losing your sense of self. The "liquor" represents air, dew, sunlight, and the entire sensory experience of the natural world.

The entire poem revolves around an extended metaphor (or conceit): nature is likened to alcohol, the outdoors to a tavern, and the speaker to a hopeless drunk. Each image — the tankards, the Rhine, the inn, the landlord, the tippler — contributes to this central comparison and sustains it throughout all four stanzas.

That's the crux of it. Those words evoke a sense of scandal and moral failure typical of 19th-century New England, where Dickinson lived. By using them in the context of something as simple as breathing summer air, she sets up a humorous contrast that amplifies the joy. At the same time, she's subtly mocking the era's moral seriousness — if this is what debauchery looks like, then it must be pretty great.

"Molten blue" describes the sky — a sky that is so vividly blue and radiant it resembles liquid metal. The "inns" refer to the expansive outdoor spaces, which the speaker explores as if hopping from one tavern to another. This beautiful, somewhat dreamlike image aligns perfectly with the notion of being intoxicated by the world.

They're the audience for the speaker's final, glorious excess. Angels wave their hats and saints gather at the windows of heaven — not to judge, but to enjoy the show. It's a humorous and heartwarming scene: even heaven is enchanted by someone who loves the natural world so deeply. It also subtly turns any anticipated moral about drunkenness on its head; there’s no punishment here, just cheers.

A "tippler" refers to someone who drinks regularly. The image depicts the speaker, small in comparison to the vast universe, filled with such joy that they rely on the sun for support — just like a drunk leans against a wall. It's a mix of humor and beauty, and the word "little" brings in a touch of self-aware affection. The speaker recognizes their smallness but embraces it without a worry.

Dickinson employs common meter (or ballad meter), where lines alternate between eight syllables (iambic tetrameter) and six syllables (iambic trimeter). Each stanza follows a loose ABCB rhyme scheme — only the second and fourth lines rhyme, and Dickinson often opts for slant rhyme ("dew" / "blue", "door" / "more"). This meter is commonly found in many Protestant hymns, lending the poem a hymn-like quality, even though it celebrates nature rather than divinity.

It's not simply a religious piece, nor does it outright reject religion. Dickinson was raised in a deeply Calvinist New England environment and had a strong understanding of the Bible. The poem takes on a hymn-like structure and concludes with references to heaven, but it focuses on the natural world as the object of worship, rather than God. A better way to put it is that she's channeling religious emotions—the awe, the ecstasy, the feeling of being overwhelmed—toward nature itself.