Let's Measure Some Booze...!

The other day we talked about the measurements of time, so I kinda wanted to do the same thing with booze.

There are many, many old and unusual measurements used for alcohol, some of which are still in use today. I have heard of many of these, but i had no idea of what most of them were to be honest!

Alcohol

Volumes of alcohol had their own particular names. In Northern England, as well as being a small horse, a pony was two mouthfuls of fluid, or 30mL. Today, a shot of spirits is sometimes called a ‘pony shot’ after this, although shots are not standardized and their volumes vary greatly. 

Much of the system that was used in old times was based on combining doubles of jackpots. A jackpot was 74mL. Two jackpots made a gill, two gills made a cup, two cups made a pint, two pints made a quart, two quarts made a pottle, two pottles made a gallon, two gallons made a peck, two pecks made a pail, two pails made a bushel, two bushels made a strike, two strikes made a coomb, two coombs made a cask, two casks made a barrel, and two barrels made a hogshead. Phew! Hog’s Head Inn from Harry Potter is named after this volume of alcohol, about 250L.

A more recent alcohol volume measurement is the bottles worth, which is equal to a standard bottle of champagne (750mL).

Kind of confusing, isn't it? If you could memorize all these different measurements and quote them on demand, just think how you could impress folks at the next get-together! Only thing is, you would probably need to be sober to do it! Know what I mean?

Let's have coffee on the patio this morning. You can help me do a rain dance!