[Sca-cooks] gallons and pottles (Elizabethan)

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

On 9 Feb 2002, at 13:56, Kirrily Robert wrote:

> Does anyone know the volume of a "gallon" and a "pottle" in
> Elizabethan terms?  It needn't be absolute, either -- if a pottle is
> usually half a gallon, that's enough for me.
>
> (I'm working on the recipe for green ginger upon sirop that I posted a
> while ago, and while it doesn't specify how much ginger to start with,
> it does go on to say "take of wine a gallon and vinegar a pottle and
> honey a pottle" for the syrup.  So as long as I get the proportions
> right, that's enough for me.

According to _A Dictionary of English Weights and Measures_ by
Zupko, a pottle is two quarts, and a gallon is two pottles.

(Elizabethan England had gallons of different sizes -- the ale gallon
was different than the wine gallon.  But as you correctly observed,
this is a question of proportions.)


Brighid ni Chiarain *** mka Robin Carroll-Mann
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom
rcmann4 at earthlink.net