Plied with a lot, to drink, gives back the gun (6)
I believe the answer is:
pistol
'the gun' is the definition.
(pistol is a kind of gun)
'plied with a lot to drink gives back' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
an anagram of 'lot' is 'tol' which is present in the answer.
The remaining letters 'pis' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for pistol that I've seen before include "Hand weapon" , "Small gun" , "Small firearm" , "A small hand-gun" , "Rectangular" .)