tipple

Hello, friends. Here is my question:

Speaker 1 is talking about something has just happened -a murder- and Speaker 2 doesn't understand. So she says:

It took me a minute to tipple to what she was saying (Alan Bennett, Nights in the Gardens of Spain).

I was able to pick up the meaning by the context. I think it's pretty obvious, but I was curious about the word tipple, so I looked it up and it mainly refers to being inebriated apparently. No dictionary shows anything along the lines of understand or similar. Could you enlighten me, please? Is it some slang, maybe?

Thank you, Mr Bones.

Hey Mr Bones. I think the use of tipple by Alan Bennett, Nights in the Gardens of Spain would be the patois of the locals. Like you, I always understood tipple to mean take a sip of the demon drink.

Thank you, Jones.

Tipple - topple - tumble:
(dialect)

Tumble: To understand something not clearly expressed;
(OED)