Bookers Bourbon Fans

[O4L]

What's interesting is that the Canadians call that a handle. As a lot of those folks are snow birds like we are, we started asking for that size vs half gallon or actually 1.75 liter in areas where snow birds congregate with no issue. I've always called it a half gallon as well, so I'm going to start using handle to see if any of our local stores at home know the difference.

I've heard it referred to as a handle many times around here over the years but not as much lately.

 

[leemozoid]

I suppose you could call me a "brown water tater". I spend a good bit of time hunting the stuff. I don't play secondary market games but thanks to relationships with store owners/managers and sometimes lucky timing I've found some pretty good bottles. There is a thriving bourbon community here in the metro. We do a lot of bottle/sample swapping and now that we're finally coming out of COVID are even starting to plan some tastings. Just search Oklahoma Bourbon on the Book of Face. One of the really cool things we do is help find bottles for others. For example you can usually always find WSR 1.75s at Byrons for around $40 (probably a 1 or 2 bottle limit) but they are far from unobtanium. Even BT is out there but you'll probably have to ask for it. Need help finding something? Just drop a PM. I'll help if I can.

 

[leemozoid]

I've heard it referred to as a handle many times around here over the years but not as much lately.

Back in the day the standard bottle was a "fifth" of a gallon and the big boys 4/5s. They were made with a glass handle cast from the neck to the shoulder. Time, tide and cost reductions had relegated the handle to history but the name stuck.

 

[O4L]

Back in the day the standard bottle was a "fifth" of a gallon and the big boys 4/5s. They were made with a glass handle cast from the neck to the shoulder. Time, tide and cost reductions had relegated the handle to history but the name stuck.

Yep.

 

[kingfish]

Was this the largest commercially sized bottle that hard liquor ever came in? The reason I ask is as a child of around 10 I attended a Catholic evening social with a family who had kids my age and the first thing I noticed was a 4x8 table covered in liquor bottles. There were three or four that was so large they sat in their own little swing so one could more easily tip it to fill their glass. It seemed like they must have been 2 or 3 gallon sized containers, but like I said I was 10 and things looked bigger back then.

 

[HFS]

Back in the day the standard bottle was a "fifth" of a gallon and the big boys 4/5s. They were made with a glass handle cast from the neck to the shoulder. Time, tide and cost reductions had relegated the handle to history but the name stuck.

Interesting. And the old "fifth" of liquor is now 750 ml.
BTW, a "magnum" is actually a bottle of wine twice the normal size; it holds 1.5 liters. Don't know who decided to give whiz-bang cartridges the name "magnum" (some marketing genius I guess).