Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Hogshead
A hogshead is a unit of volume for alcoholic beverages in the imperial system. A hogshead of wine is 63 gallons. A hogshead of beer or ale is 54 gallons.
The unit of measurement is rarely used, although it re-entered pop culture when, during one episode of The Simpsons, Grampa Simpson uttered, “My car gets forty rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!” However, such an amount is unthinkable for an automobile, as it would work out to 432 (beer) or 504 (wine) gallons to go a single mile.
This measurement was the inspiration behind the naming of the UK pub chain "Hogshead".
A hogshead was also used as unit of measurement for sugar in Louisiana for most of the 19th century. Plantations were listed in sugar schedules as having produced x number of hogsheads of sugar or molasses.
The contents of this article is licensed from www.wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. Click here to see the transparent copy and copyright details