Hogshead
{{Short description|Unit of volume for tobacco, wine or beer}}
{{other uses}}
File:English wine cask units.jpg
A hogshead (abbreviated "hhd", plural "hhds") is a large cask of liquid (or, less often, of a food commercial product) for manufacturing and sale. It refers to a specified volume, measured in either imperial or US customary measures, primarily applied to alcoholic beverages, such as wine, ale, or cider.
Etymology
File:US-Stamp-Beer-1867-2 dollars (1 hogshead).jpg (proof) for the $2 tax on one hogshead of beer in 1867.]]
English philologist Walter William Skeat (1835–1912) noted the origin is to be found in the name for a cask or liquid measure appearing in various forms in Germanic languages, in Dutch oxhooft (modern okshoofd), Danish oxehoved, Old Swedish oxhuvud, etc. The Encyclopædia Britannica of 1911 conjectured that the word should therefore be "oxhead", "hogshead" being a mere corruption.{{cite EB1911|wstitle=Hogshead |volume=13|page=507}}
Varieties and standardisation
File:Sugar-Hogsheads - Ten Views in the Island of Antigua (1823), plate X - BL.jpg
A tobacco hogshead was used in British and American colonial times to transport and store tobacco. It was a very large wooden barrel. A standardized hogshead measured {{convert|48|in|m|2}} long and {{convert|30|in|cm|2}} in diameter at the head (at least {{convert|550|L|impgal USgal|0|abbr=on|disp=or}}, depending on the width in the middle). Fully packed with tobacco, it weighed about {{convert|1000|lb|kg|0}}{{Citation needed|date=April 2024|reason=This is stated in many secondary sources, but a good primary source is needed.}}.
A hogshead in Britain contains about {{convert|300|L|impgal USgal|0|abbr=on}}.{{cite web | url = http://www.apjohn.com.au/Upload/PrintPages/AP%20John_Technical_Specifications.pdf | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110215212133/http://www.apjohn.com.au/Upload/PrintPages/AP%20John_Technical_Specifications.pdf | url-status = dead | archive-date = 2011-02-15 | title =AP John Technical Specifications}}
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) notes that the hogshead was first standardized by an act of Parliament (2 Hen. 6. c. 14) in 1423, though the standards continued to vary by locality and content. For example, the OED cites an 1897 edition of Whitaker's Almanack, which specified the gallons of wine in a hogshead varying most particularly across fortified wines: claret/Madeira {{convert|46|impgal|USgal L|0}}, port {{convert|57|impgal|USgal L|0}}, sherry {{convert|54|impgal|USgal L|0}}. The American Heritage Dictionary claims that a hogshead can consist of anything from (presumably) {{convert|62.5|to|140|USgal|impgal L|0}}. A hogshead of Madeira wine was approximately equal to 45–48 gallons (0.205–0.218 m3). A hogshead of brandy was approximately equal to 56–61 gallons (0.255–0.277 m3).{{cn|date=May 2022}}
Eventually, a hogshead of wine came to be {{convert|52.5|impgal|L|6|lk=on}} (or 63 US gallons), while a hogshead of beer or ale came to be 54 gallons (249.54221 L with the pre-1824 beer and ale gallon, or 245.48886 L with the imperial gallon).
A hogshead was also used as unit of measurement for sugar in Louisiana for most of the 19th century. Plantations were listed in sugar schedules by the number of hogsheads of sugar or molasses produced. Used for sugar in the 18th and 19th centuries in the British West Indies, a hogshead weighed on average 16 cwt / 813kg. A hogshead was also used for the measurement of herring fished for sardines in Blacks Harbour, New Brunswick and Cornwall.{{cite news |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0001617/18601205/057/0004?browse=true |title= |newspaper= |location= |page= |issue= |date= |url-access=subscription |via=British Newspaper Archive}}{{Full citation needed|date=May 2022}}
Charts
{{English wine casks}}
{{English brewery casks}}