Opening of schnapps bottle - American's going to get lashed with this? (7)
I believe the answer is:
scourge
'get lashed with this?' is the definition.
The definition suggests a singular noun which matches the answer.
'opening of schnapps bottle american's going' is the wordplay.
'opening of schnapps' becomes 's' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'bottle' becomes 'courage' (I've seen this before).
'american' becomes 'a' (common abbreviation - e.g. in organisation names).
'going' indicates named letters should be taken away.
'courage' with 'a' taken away is 'courge'.
's'+'courge'='SCOURGE'
'to' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for scourge that I've seen before include "Whip - bane" , "Person/thing causing great suffering; whip" , "form of punishment" , "Plague; whip" , "Curse; whip" .)