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Since 1700, Wine Glasses Have Gotten 7 Times Bigger

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Re: Since 1700, Wine Glasses Have Gotten 7 Times Bigger

#101

Post by dagw »

test1235 wrote: post #95
makesthingspos wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These cups are not usually labeled with serving information. They don't, for example, have how many calories are in them because they can be filled with a variety of different sodas (some zero calorie). FWIW, from my perception, the 128 oz is very rare, 64 oz is fairly common but a small percent of sales, and 44 oz is very common. (edit: these are for convenience stores like 7-11, not restaurants etc where sizes are…

wow ... do we have 1+ litre servings here in UK? Maybe at the cinema or something? Most common serving size here might be a pint, which is about half a litre, I guess.

One factor that I've noticed is that Americans love ice much more than Europeans. It's not uncommon for them to fill a cup with ice almost to the rim and then add the soda. It would be interesting to see how much actual soda most people put in those 1+ litre ups.

Re: Since 1700, Wine Glasses Have Gotten 7 Times Bigger

#102

Post by Cthulhu_ »

esmi wrote: post #35

http://www.delish.com/food/news/a39120/super-sized-beverages... "For 25 years, a 26-ounce drink was the biggest soda a person could buy. Then in 1980, a shift occurred when 7-Eleven began its Big Gulp campaign. Big Gulp fountain drink cup sizes steadily rose throughout the decade and beyond, beginning at 32 ounces in 1980, then climbing to 44 ounces in 1986, 64 ounces in 1989, and a behemoth 128 ounces in 2006. Calle…

https://stuffyoushouldhave.com/images/wine-bottle-glass/fb_w...

Re: Since 1700, Wine Glasses Have Gotten 7 Times Bigger

#103

Post by Amezarak »

rsynnott wrote: post #53
excitom wrote: post #14

Back in the day a Royal Navy sailor's daily ration of beer was a gallon, or a half pint of 115 proof rum. I don't think the dainty wineglasses are a good indication of volume consumed.

If a sailor died of cirrhosis at 40, though, the Navy wasn’t too bothered. Alcohol is more of a heath threat these days partially because consumption has tended to rise, but also because people aren’t dying of other things as much.

> but also because people aren’t dying of other things as much.

Historical life expectancies were usually not that bad. The shortness of pre-modern life is generally grossly exaggerated, with the raw numbers being dragged down by things like infant mortality.

See, for example:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2672390/

> Analysis of the mid-Victorian period in the U.K. reveals that life expectancy at age 5 was as good or better than exists today, and the incidence of degenerative disease was 10% of ours.

In times of great calamities like massive, prolonged wars and plagues - which some societies are more susceptible to than others [1] - things certainly turned grim, but by-and-large things weren't so bad. One way you can get a picture of this yourself is by looking at your genealogical history, which effectively lets you calculate "life expectancy from teens/early 20s", since all your ancestors were old enough to have kids. It's a somewhat selective picture, but if you fill out enough branches to the early 1700s, you can get a probably reasonable sample.

[1] And actually, Victorian England was particularly unsanitary and subject to disease - it really says something that even a plague-ridden society of people who ate arsenic and mercury still lived just as long or longer than us.

Re: Since 1700, Wine Glasses Have Gotten 7 Times Bigger

#104

Post by simonh »

justaaron wrote: post #24

Why has no one mentioned that "wine" to a Brit in 1700 meant FORTIFIED wine like Port wine or Sherry (aka 18-20% alcohol instead of 11-15%)? The fortification of Port wine is legendarily attributed to both British tastes for sweet or "stalled mid fermentation by addition of spirits" wine, and the voyage by sea, in which normal wines suffered excessively from spoilage etc.

The taste for fortified wine was also driven by import duties and the evasion of them. Duties were levied on the volume of alcoholic beverages, not their strength so it was relatively cheaper to import stronger drinks. Then again smuggling was rife and sneaking in more concentrated beverages was much more profitable. In fact the existence of many fortified or distilled drinks on the continent, such as Brandy/Cognac was largely driven by British import duties.

Re: Since 1700, Wine Glasses Have Gotten 7 Times Bigger

#105

Post by jaclaz »

As a side note, at least here in Italy, serving a glass of wine at a restaurant is a relatively recent use (say in the last 15-20 years) new thing (most probably "imported" from other countries).

Until then you either ordered a bottle (around 75 cl) or some "house" wine, served in (measured) of either 25 cl (a quarter, "un quartino") 50 cl (a half liter, "un mezzo") or 100 cl (a liter, "un litro"), that looked like these:

http://bar-barman.com/1183-thickbox_default/caraffe-misura-b...

Or, in many places, wine was "a consumo" (upon consumption?) where the waiter would bring on the table a full "fiasco" (large bottle of wine, usually 1.75 l) and then estimate how much of it you emptied when it came to calculate the bill.

In any case normally each person would drink no more than "un quartino", no matter the size of the glass.

Re: Since 1700, Wine Glasses Have Gotten 7 Times Bigger

#106

Post by peterwwillis »

wahern wrote: post #49
lqet wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I thought. I regularly enjoy a "modern" glass of wine, but for port wine, even a full shot glass is too much for me. It's just so heavy and sweet. The glasses depicted in the article seem to hold exactly the amount of port I would be able to comfortably drink in 10-20 minutes.

Have you tried a Sercial or Verdelho Madeira? Almost all Madeira sold is Malmsey, which is the sweetest. You'll sometimes find bottles of the Boal style, the next sweetest, sold as a digestif if the restaurant is a little more discerning. But the best styles, IMO, are Sercial and Verdelho. Sercial is dry and Verdelho medium-dry[1], IMO have more fascinating flavors, and tend to be more acidic than the sweeter styles,…

Honestly, this really downplays Tawny. I have a half-decent bottle of a 2011 LBV Tawny Port, which is about as low quality as I will drink. I opened it probably six to nine months ago, and it's still pretty good, though obviously not at its prime.

Traveling around Spain and Portugal you can find Vintage Ports that cost about $25 and will taste absolutely amazing (though I try to stick to above 20-year oaked tawny blends). Quite a few are not very sweet, and not very heavy. Also, Vintage Port has a considerable shelf life. The oldest currently available vintage is 1815.

Re: Since 1700, Wine Glasses Have Gotten 7 Times Bigger

#107

Post by prawn »

djrogers wrote: post #71
prawn wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with everything, it's a trend. If you served dinner with a smaller wine glass (an XL5, for example), some people would wonder if you'd missed a memo. Gets a bit silly. Larger glasses allow for more surface area, sure, but they're impractically delicate to use and clean. But then, if you think that's silly, consider jeans. For almost everyone in a Western country, if you left the house in jeans with a really unfash…

> I know circles where you'd be ridiculed for life. There’s a good signal that those circles are to be avoided.

You say that, but this includes friends raising it routinely at the pub and things like that. If not jeans, I think any social circle would have an equivalent reaction for another fashion faux pas, even if it was more dramatic like wearing flared pants or overalls.

Re: Since 1700, Wine Glasses Have Gotten 7 Times Bigger

#108

Post by madcaptenor »

microcolonel wrote: post #56
kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's just a 1.5x in potency. Doesn't explain the 7x increase in size.

The increase in the volume poured is actually more like 4x, the article clearly explains that the glassware tax encouraged, in the region, glassware which was meant to be filled close to the brim, while modern glassware is meant to be filled to a about a third (or if you're not at a dive, often a quarter) full. Furthermore, the difference in sugar content (and overall in non-water contents) is almost as important as…

My wife is trained as a sommelier. In my understanding sommeliers generally figure five glasses to the bottle. (When we're pouring for ourselves, it's four glasses, because then we don't have to fight over who gets the extra glass.)

A bottle is 750 ml, so that's a 150-ml pour (five to the bottle) or 187.5-ml (four to the bottle). As the article says a typical glass holds about 450 ml now.

Re: Since 1700, Wine Glasses Have Gotten 7 Times Bigger

#109

Post by madcaptenor »

dagw wrote: post #101
test1235 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wow ... do we have 1+ litre servings here in UK? Maybe at the cinema or something? Most common serving size here might be a pint, which is about half a litre, I guess.

One factor that I've noticed is that Americans love ice much more than Europeans. It's not uncommon for them to fill a cup with ice almost to the rim and then add the soda. It would be interesting to see how much actual soda most people put in those 1+ litre ups.

I've seen calorie counts posted on soda fountains. If I recall correctly the fine print says that they figure one-third ice.

Re: Since 1700, Wine Glasses Have Gotten 7 Times Bigger

#110

Post by madcaptenor »

wiredfool wrote: post #93
oh_sigh wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The beer doesn't even count, as it was fortified with lime and was essentially water. The half pint(can we just say 'cup' now?) of rum is equal to about 5 shots worth. Not really enough to get any sailor shitfaced, but enough to take the edge off of a long shift of physical labor in a very harsh, unforgiving environment.

A pint is 20oz in the UK, and 16oz in the US. So a Half Pint is a 10oz glass (close to the normal 12oz 'Pint Glass' you get in American bars, or the standard beer bottle), and a full pint is nearly double the usual American beer serving. Cups aren't used. Randomly, there's a line in 1984 where a guy in a bar is lamenting the switch from Pints to Half or Full Liters, and it never made sense to me because the differenc…

Also, a half liter is larger than an American pint (473 mL) but smaller than a UK pint (568 mL - UK fluid ounces are smaller than US fluid ounces). And I would imagine that prices wouldn't go down when they switched from imperial pints to half-liters.
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