hogsheads

Hogshead is a historical term for a large cask used to store and transport liquids. The exact capacity varied by commodity and era, but a hogshead generally describes a container larger than a standard wine barrel, used for wine, beer, spirits, and sometimes tobacco or sugar. In wine and spirit trades, a hogshead was commonly around 60 to 70 US gallons (about 230 to 270 liters); imperial measures produced similar order-of-magnitude sizes, though figures varied by country and period.

The name is of English origin, and the term likely derives from the notion of a “hog’s head,” a large head-sized cask suitable for bulk cargo. Coopers built hogsheads to assist long-distance transport by ship and wagon, especially in Britain and its trading networks.

Today, hogshead remains a historical unit and term. While modern packaging tends toward standardized sizes, the word appears in historical documents and in some bulk-transport contexts to denote large casks and their associated volumes.