Old Imperial Spirit Bottle Sizes

[minesapint]

I've recently been given what I would call a quarter bottle of gin. On checking the label, I note that it contains 20cl (200ml). This started my befuddled brain thinking. If the bottle is intended to be a quarter bottle, then a full bottle of gin would be 80cl (800ml). However, all standard bottles of spirits are 70cl (700ml) not 80cl (800ml). This means that the 20cl is not a true quarter of a bottle as I understood it to be when I was a lad.

On thinking further about this, I realised I couldn't remember the capacity of the spirit bottles sold in the fifties and sixties. I don't think we were metricated then so how many fluid ounces or whatever other volume units were in a full bottle of spirits all those years ago? Were the half and quarter bottles I bought truly a half and quarter of a full bottle?

Thank you

[gingejbee]

....but the "quarter bottle" that you remember from olden-times wouldn't have been 20cl...it would have been a quarter of whatever was a full (Imperial) bottle...and I don't go back that far! The bottle you've been given isn't properly known as a"quarter bottle"....it's just a 20cl bottle.

[dannyk13]

http://creativespaces.eu/index.php/what-i-do/35-craft-and-country-/64-imperial-measurements

[sunny-dave]

Old spirits bottles were a pint and a third - 26 and 2/3 fl oz - which is 757ml (we were all swindled when it went down to 700ml)

So a quarter bottle was a third of a pint - 6 and 2/3 fl oz

That equates to 189.33 ml - which has been rounded up to 200 ml these days.

[gingejbee]

...yes, was just going to add similar....the bottle you've been given is similar in size, but not the same. At the time of metrication all Imperial bottles, jars, cans etc were "re-imagined" into metric "nearly the sames".

[minesapint]

gingejbee, I thought I had made clear in my post the very points you have stated in your first post. You seem to have just repeated what I said. What I wanted was the volume that you refer to as a "quarter of whatever was a full (imperial) bottle". It was the size of the full bottle I was seeking. I'm perfectly well aware that the 20cl bottle isn't a proper quarter bottle.

Thank you both dannyk13 and sunny-dave.