Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

The Proper Red Stuff In A Ginger Beer Bottle

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #31
    Hi,

    It was a half-penny on a penny bottle, so fairly hefty in comparison with the price of the ginger-beer.

    When you consider that a large gin was three pence though, then ginger-beer was quite cheap. I suppose those earthenware bottles held nearly a pint, I've never really thought work it out. Although the law stated it was only supposed to be 2% proof, you can bet your life that it some of it was a lot stronger. I wouldn't be at all surprised if you couldn't get quite pissed on a couple of bottles.

    Just in case anyone hasn't seen a ginger-beer bottle (highly unlikely), here's what one looks like. I would have thought that neck was quite narrow to get an old fashioned pen in, so I presume that if anyone was going to try and use the blood to write a letter, then they would have to pour it out into something. Which does beg the question how did they get it in there in the first place?

    Just assuming that Jack did collect some of his victim's blood in the ginger-beer bottle, then I find it impossible for him to have been able to get much in there without a funnel or something. We start getting into rather bizarre territory here, of Jack running around Whitechapel with a veritable kitchen load of utensils in his pocket.

    I'm afraid that I have to go with the generally accepted idea that a journalist(s) wrote the letter and thought it would be a bit of macabre fun to give it a gruesome embellishment.

    Hugs

    Janie

    xxxx
    Attached Files
    I'm not afraid of heights, swimming or love - just falling, drowning and rejection.

    Comment


    • #32
      Thanks again Jane! I think that is why they cut the alcohol content, it was a cheap drunk. Before, if they could only afford 4 bottles, they could become drunk and cause problems, now 4 bottles would barely stir a buzz, so less problems from those that could not get as drunk as before. Be my guess anyway. Still wonder if the higher alcohol could keep the blood viable though...
      I confess that altruistic and cynically selfish talk seem to me about equally unreal. With all humility, I think 'whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might,' infinitely more important than the vain attempt to love one's neighbour as one's self. If you want to hit a bird on the wing you must have all your will in focus, you must not be thinking about yourself, and equally, you must not be thinking about your neighbour; you must be living with your eye on that bird. Every achievement is a bird on the wing.
      Oliver Wendell Holmes

      Comment


      • #33
        Ginger Beer

        Originally posted by Sally View Post
        British Excise decreed in 1852 that Ginger Beer should have an alcohol content no higher than 2% - I think this would have been about the same as malt beer. That's the British Government for you - spoiling all the fun

        I also wonder if it would have been sold in earthenware bottles, not glass? I have a vague memory of hearing this somewhere. I don't know whether that would have been cheaper than glass?
        Sally, I have a ginger beer bottle from approximately the same time 1870s-1890s that is indeed earthen ware.Cheers.
        Neil "Those who forget History are doomed to repeat it." - Santayana

        Comment

        Working...
        X