ROUND BEVERAGE BOTTLES.--Bottles of dark-green glass were used in the
colonial period for wine, beer, rum, and other potables. Although some
wines and liquors were shipped in the bottle, they were distributed for
the most part in casks, hogsheads, and "pipes" before 1750. John Mercer
recorded the purchases of several pipes of wine--kinds unspecified--a
pipe being a large or even double-size hogshead. He purchased rum by the
gallon, in quantities that ranged from 2 quarts in 1744 to "5 galls
Barbadoes Spirits" in 1745 and a "hhd 107-1/2 gall Rum" in 1748.
Bottles were used largely for household storage and for the serving of
liquors. They were kept filled in the buttery as a convenience against
going to the cellar each time a drink was wanted. Bottles usually were
brought directly to the table,[203] although the clear-glass decanter
was apparently regarded as a more genteel dispenser. Mercer, like his
contemporaries, bought his own bottles, as when he purchased "2 doz
bottles" from John Foward in 1730. The previous year he had acquired a
gross of corks, which would customarily have been inserted in his
bottles and secured by covering with cloth, tying around the lips or
string rings with packthread, and sealing with warm resin and pitch.
Some wines were purchased in the bottle. In 1726 Mercer bought "2 doz &
8 bottles Claret" and "1 doz Canary" from Alexander McFarlane. In 1745
he charged Overwharton Parish for "2 bottles Claret to Acquia,"
apparently for communion wine. Whether all this was shipped from the
vineyards in bottles, or whether Mercer brought his own bottles to be
filled from the storekeepers' casks is not revealed.
An insight into the kinds of alcoholic drinks consumed in Virginia in
Mercer's early period is given in the official price-list for the sale
of alcoholic beverages set forth in the York County Court Orders in
1726:[204]
This Court do Sett the Rate Liquors as followeth:
£ s. d.
Liquors
Rated