A wineglass is an unofficial but widely used British liquid measure of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, holding half a gill, or two ounces (roughly 60 ml). It is based on the small, conical glasses British drinkers used to consume the fortified wines that accounted for the bulk of British wine drinking. Their small size facilitated the drinking of multiple toasts, as was customary. As toasting fell out of fashion, wine glasses grew in size, and by the end of the nineteenth century one finds writers adapting older recipes often falling into confusion and treating a wine glass as four ounces (120 ml) or more. The wineglass as a bar measure was replaced by the jigger. See jigger.
Ward, Artemas. The Grocers’ Handbook and Directory for 1886. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Grocer Publishing, 1886.
By: David Wondrich