Alcohol and Drunkenness

We'd think we were talking about Ernest Hemingway or Edgar Allan Poe with all the discussion about alcohol and being drunk in this poem. Miss Dickinson, however, is less interested in the kind of drinking that led other authors to brawls and bad tempers and more in the drunkenness of a naturally-induced euphoric state. In other words, Dickinson was just high on life.

• Line 1: Though the liquor has never been brewed, the poet drinks it in gladly. Letting us know that this alcohol has never actually been brewed tips us off right away that this is a metaphor for something else. 
• Line 2: For a modern audience, "Tankards scooped in Pearl" conjure up images of Renaissance fairs or men shouting a lot about winter coming or paying their debts. Dickinson's choice of words here gives us some major hints about her state of mind and her opinions of drinking actual alcohol to the point of inebriation. While tankards were still standard drinking vessels at the inn tavern, upper- middle class families like Dickinson's were sipping their sherry out of lead crystal and hot toddies out of porcelain. Pearly-headed beer in tankards was the stuff of the lower classes, but that doesn't seem to matter to our speaker. After all, she can get her jollies in a perfectly respectable way by getting drunk off nature. 
• Line 3-4: This one is pretty straightforward. Alcohol is alcohol, after all. The "Frankfort Berries" indicate an especially fine kind of alcohol, but Dickinson feels that the intoxication of just being alive and experiencing all that nature and poetry has to offer provides an experience of drunkenness more intense and wonderful than any literal wine can offer. 
• Line 5: Again, Dickinson reminds us that, though she's a bit tipsy, the only thing she's doing is breathing in what nature provides. 
• Line 6: Being a "Debauchee" indicates that this isn't just a one-night drinking binge for the speaker, it's a pretty big habit. She loves this stuff and she has not only been drinking in the dew in the past, but she has made it a habit and will continue to do so. She is unapologetically hooked. 
• Line 7: This is another indication that she has no intention of exercising any level of restraint when it comes to her special kind of drunkenness—at least not until summer is over. 
• Line 9-12: Here, the bee is getting tossed out on his little bee-hind (sorry) and the butterflies have taken their last selfie for the night and called a cab because it's closing time at the bar. Our saucy narrator, however, will continue drinking. Though it would be adorable to find a tiny bar with little drunken bugs, what Dickinson is really driving at is that she'll continue to enjoy all the fruits of nature well past nightfall and probably even after the seasons start to turn. 
• Line 15: The first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem. Here she's even calling herself out as being a tippler, or someone who habitually drinks.
• Line 16: "Manzanilla" is both the name of a variety of sherry made in a particular province of Spain and the Spanish word for the chamomile, which makes pretty tasty tea (unless you happen to be Professor Elemental, who always says, "No, thanks!" to herbals). Dickenson seems to be using some clever wordplay here, since the word works whether it's about nature or about actual alcohol. People can get drunk off the sherry, and bees, butterflies, and the narrator can get drunk off the pretty little white flowers of the chamomile plant.