strong drink: an intoxicating fermented drink other than grape wine, regularly named right alongside wine
Strong drink is any fermented beverage brewed to intoxicate that was not made from grapes. In the ancient world that meant drinks made from barley or other grain, from dates, from pomegranates, or sweetened with honey. Its close partner in the text is the ordinary word for wine, and the two are almost always spoken in the same breath. Naming both together is a way of saying every kind of drink that can make a person drunk, from the finest wine to the cheapest brew.
The Bible does not treat the drink as evil in itself. It is poured out to God as part of the offerings (Numbers 28:7) and bought for glad feasting before him (Deuteronomy 14:26). Yet the people set most closely apart for God stand back from it: priests on duty (Leviticus 10:9) and those under the Nazirite vow, including Samson's mother while she carried him (Numbers 6:3; Judges 13:4).
Alongside these settings, the same word becomes a byword for the wreckage of heavy drinking. The prophets and the wise picture leaders who reel with it, judges who take bribes for it, and whole cities given over to it (Proverbs 20:1; Isaiah 5:11; Isaiah 28:7). One word thus stretches from the altar to the gutter, its meaning steady while its company changes.