A bottle of Madeira is no small thing. It's not an unbelievable tab, but it's a fairly raucous night out, when many people imagine the Founding Fathers as a bunch of stuffy guys in wigs. Which, I mean, they were to some degree, but also partying is a long American tradition. o7

[–] idegenszavak@sh.itjust.works 22 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I just look up Madeira, is says it's 18% alcohol, that's still not a spirit, yeah it's not a classic wine. They were grown up men celebrating something, I guess they also ate something, I still don't understand why is it a big deal.

[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 28 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I mean, 3 bottles of wine, 3 or 4 whiskeys and call it the better part of a liter of punch is a fair bit of alcohol. Im pretty sure it would have my "2 beers a week" stomach giving up halfway.

But it's not a blackout drunk amount if spread over an evening and night. Student-me would consider an above average night.

[–] general_kitten@sopuli.xyz 20 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Did some quick calculations and based on those on average one person drank 300-400ml of pure ethanol, if drank at once it would be a deadly amount for 80kg male and even spread over about 16 hours very drunk would be an understatement

If i would ever attempt to drink that much i would make sure that some much less drunk would watch me the whole night until morning to make sure i am fine

Though if the wine bottles were more like 500ml or 375ml the overall amount becomes more reasonable for a party average as i don't think while some could drink that much and be fine, that everyone could drink that much in a night without the 'party' becoming people being blacked out on the floor swimming in their own vomit unless the invitations were sent based on their alcohol tolerance

[–] BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee 16 points 3 months ago

Keeping in mind that these people were what modern people would consider to be alcoholics, this is till a fuckload of alcohol lol

[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Both wine and beer/cider bottles were basically completely non-standardized around then. They were mostly smaller, so with the benefit of the doubt let's call it about as much as today.

Punch is harder to say. It was somewhere around 5 to 10% alcohol, but unfortunately a punch bowl could be a communal thing, being the size of a large family salad bowl and holding over 5 liters. But punch was also served from those bowel into handheld bowls, which was basically a cup.

Let's go with the big ones and add a liter of punch each. So that 3 bottles of wine equivalent, 4 whiskey's and a beer. Not exactly light drinking, but hardly the thing you brag about I would think.

[–] Donkter@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Also don't forget that when this tab says "bottle" for liquor it almost certainly doesn't mean a fifth like is standard today.

[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 11 points 3 months ago (1 children)

They were mostly smaller, actually. Some 400 to 500 ml were pretty standard, unlike the bigger 750ml that you see today. Depending on what you bought and from where, your bottle could be really anything, but they were handmade and thick, so really big bottles would be really heavy.

[–] Donkter@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Oh I did mean smaller yeah. I see how it could be ambiguous.

[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 1 points 3 months ago

Doesn't say how big are the bottles either.