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.