The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #38119   Message #2716803
Posted By: GUEST,farcalled
05-Sep-09 - 11:49 AM
Thread Name: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
Most English pubs in urban areas had a "Jug and Bottle" This was a serving outlet, usually a hatch, reached from the street by a special door marked "Jug and Bottle" .

This is where you bought your ale and beer to drink at home. You could not drink in the Jug and Bottle. Beer, of course, was sold in the bottle but ale from the barrel had to be carried home in a jug you brought with you. Jugs were usually quart sized.

The advantage of the Jug and Bottle was that you didn't have to go into the pub.

Thus it could be used by underage children (although such sales were illegal from the beginning of the 20th century) and "ladies" who wouldn't have been seen dead in the tap room.