Red Wine or White, What's in the Cask? Quiz

The name "tun" dates back a long time, to an Old Norse word "tunna", which was applied to any cask or barrel. There is an argument that it, in turn, was derived from the Old Irish word "tonn", which meant wineskin. Eventually the word would evolve to indicate both a weight (tonne) and the abovenamed volume.

The tun, in modern terms, equates to approximately 1,000 litres but that would also depend on what it was holding. Herein lies the reason there has been so much confusion about measures of volume over the centuries. Wine gallons differ to oil gallons which, in turn, differ to ale gallons. In other words, the same cask holding these items was viewed with a different holding capacity. Different countries or regions would also carry/apply different meanings/volumes to the same sized cask. For example, for the benefit of this quiz, we will be dealing with US wine gallons. A tun represents 252 wine gallons (954 litres) while in the Imperial system it comes to 210 gallons or 955 litres. Confused yet... good, so was I for a while. Let's throw another spanner into the works. The French have a similar sized barrel called a Brobdingnagian, which is also called a Bordeaux tonne and that holds 900 litres.

The tun initially measured 256 gallons but was pruned down to 252 in the early part of the 15th century. The thinking behind this was that the lesser number was more easily divisible by other single digit numbers, including the number seven.

The speculation is that the term butt came from the Medieval period. The French and the Italians, at the time, used the term "botte", while the Spanish evoked the word "bota". What was consistent is that all three represented a measurement that equated to a half of a tun.

For a period of time the butt was also known as a pipe, which represented half a tun and, from all indications, both the pipe and the tun, were of the same volume. Today, however, there is a clear distinction between the two; a butt is a holding of 126 US wine gallons (477 litres) while a pipe measures 171.7 gallons or 650 litres. The word pipe is derived from the Portuguese word "pipa", meaning cask.

History will tell us that the Duke of Clarence, the brother of Edward IV, was reportedly drowned in "a butt of malmsey". On the other hand, Edgar Allan Poe describes his narrator in "The Cask of Amontillado" (1846) as receiving "a pipe of what passes for Amontillado". The amazing thing for this author is that he has written this section of information without once echoing the thought of walking into a bar and ordering a butt-load of wine... oops.

Often referred to as one third of a tun, the puncheon is another one of the reasons we can be so easily confused by these measures. In US wine gallons, the puncheon holds 84 gallons, or 318 litres. Skip across the Atlantic to the United Kingdom and the puncheon is a container that holds amounts that vary from 70 gallons through to 120 gallons (318-546 litres).

In the United States, the puncheon is often shortened to a "pon". Some have also called it a tertian or a tereian, which is derived from the Latin term for a third. Conjecture exists as to whether the term tertian should be applied at this level as a measurement as the word tierce (which comes later) has the same meaning. There is also conjecture as to the origin of the term puncheon. One theory is that the term goes back to 1627 when the Trinidadians produced a high proof rum, which they called Puncheon, however, the stronger view takes us back to Medieval times. The French had a barrel they called the poincon and it was so named because of a stamp that would be "punched" onto the barrel after it had been inspected.

With the possible exception of the firkin, it would be difficult to find a more evocative name for a barrel, in this quiz, than the hogshead. Despite this, trying to track down the origin of the name has been difficult. Some sources indicate that in Middle English "hogs" meant barrels or casks and the "head" meant the removable lid. In a nutshell, it meant a barrel with a lid. This is also disputed (see below).

The name, however, and the quantity that it entailed, was standardized by a British Act of Parliament in 1423. Sounds good, however, despite this, it did not guarantee the stability of the measurement and the various regions in which it was employed and the goods that the cask carried, meant that the quantity continued to vary.

Back to the name and, if you are like me, you're wondering "what does a pigs head have to do with casks and wine"? That remains as unclear as my head after a hogshead of wine. Various theories have been put forth and they all bring the abovementioned "barrel with a lid" option into question. Some claim that it relates, not to a hog's head, but to hog's hide, which was used to make drinking vessels from which wine would be drunk. That theory has been poo-pooed by the noted philologist (one who studies the history of languages) Walter William Skeet, who declared in 1896 that it was a corruption of an Old Swedish word "oxhuvud", meaning ox-barrel. Out of all the theories, this one, possibly, holds the most water (pun not intended) as there were similar words around at the time; "oxhooft" in Dutch and "oxehoved" in Danish.

Nowadays, it is a unit of liquid measurement that equates to half a butt or a quarter of a tun. Precisely 63 US wine gallons, 238 litres or 52 and a half Imperial gallons. The hogshead should not be confused with the term "hoggies". The latter term stems from a practice conducted within the whiskey industry where they would break down five standard (hogshead) barrels into staves, put new ends onto those staves and then re-assemble them to create a larger cask.

The word Tierce comes from Latin and Old French words meaning "a third" or "the third". Despite the origin, it does not mean that this measurement equates to one third of a tun. Instead, and strangely, it is one third of a butt, which is equal to one sixth of a tun. Effectively, it is the same as 42 US wine gallons, 158 litres or 55 Imperial gallons. Though it was predominantly used for the transport of wine, it would also accommodate the transport of salted pork or the maturation of rum.

An interesting footnote here is that it has a strong link with the standard US oil barrel. Both are used as a 42 gallon measurement. The theory behind this is that it arose from the oil boom in Pennsylvania in the 1860s, which took people by surprise, and they were left with a dearth of storage barrels in which to store the oil. Drillers tried to get their hands on whatever barrel they could and the most readily available were whiskey barrels (40 gallons) and the tierce (42 gallons), the latter more so than the former. The difference in the quantity between the two led to another issue... mistrust between buyers and sellers. To resolve this, the producers got together in 1866 with the view to creating an oil barrel standard and opted to use the tierce.

The barrel can be applied to several differing units of volume. There are dry barrels, fluid barrels, oil barrels... the list goes on. It has represented a fluid measure since Medieval times and appears to have derived its name from the French word "baril".

In US wine gallons the barrel measures 32 gallons or 118 litres. In Imperial gallons, there are 26 of them. It is the equivalent of half a hogshead or one eighth of a tun. This measure, as a fluid measure, seems to be restricted to the wine industry and there is no record of its use within the spirit industry. That said, there is mention of an octave barrel, which is a rather obscure size, mentioned in a blog by the Whiskey Exchange. It records the measure as 125 litres, slightly more than a barrel measurement, but there is no indication as to what the equivalent is in US wine gallons. To confuse the issue, as its name (octave) implies, it is also seen as one eighth of a tun.

The name rundlet is seldom used and dwells in the realms of the archaic. It is derived from both the Middle English word "rondelet" and the Anglo-Norman word "rondel". Much like the name, the cask size that it represents is also seldom used and it has been consigned to the kingdom of collectors.

It measures 18 US wine gallons, 68 litres or 15 Imperial gallons. It is the equivalent of one seventh of a butt or one fourteenth of a tun. With this in mind it is a little easier to understand why the initial measurement of a tun (256 gallons) was pruned back to 252 during the 15th century.

The kilderkin is a strange size and I toyed with the idea of leaving it out of this quiz. It is a medium sized cask that was initially used for both wine and ale but, nowadays, it is used purely for ale, making it (almost) superfluous as wine gallon measurement. Initially it was measured as 16 US wine gallons, which placed it smaller than the rundlet (18 US wine gallons), however, over time and with its primary use shifting to being an ale barrel, a number of sources are listing it as 17 or 18 gallons. At this point I must stress that these are not wine gallons but measures for other fluids. Their quantities differ.

The cask is still in use today in the United Kingdom, but it is selective. The main driver behind its use is a weird group called CAMRA or the Campaign for Real Ale. They attend festivals around the UK, selling ale in containers called firkins but they account for their sales in kilderkins... like I said, "weird".

I used to use the word firkin a lot as a kid and then tried to convince my dad that I wasn't swearing... he didn't believe me and then I got into trouble for being a smart rear end. Firkin comes from the Middle Dutch word vierdekijn, which means "little fourth" or quarter.

However, it's not a quarter of a tun but, a quarter of a barrel. Initially, it began life as eight US wine gallons but, over time, its use as a wine carrier all but disappeared and it is now, predominantly, a cask for carting ale. Under that fluid its measure is closer to 9 Imperial gallons or 11 US gallons.

Whilst this is the smallest cask in this quiz, it is not quite the smallest that you could find. The pin is another that is now used as an ale carrier. It started life as a quantity of four US wine gallons. Don't be surprised if an ale drinker now describes it as 5.4 US gallons or, approximately, 20 litres.

At this size, this cask is the domain of home brewers or for medium sized storage. If you're looking for something smaller, you can opt for the polypin (approximately ten litres) or, even smaller, the barracoon, which comes as a holding of four litres.