The Proper Pint - Bring Back Imperialism
Well, this guy is leaving the company and we took him out for some cocktails at Connolly's on East 47th Street. Part of a small Irish chain of bars in Manhattan. Good pub grub. Good drink. Efficient, courteous service. But bad in one respect.
When you ask for a pint, this bar, and most others now, give you a technical pint. It is 16 fluid ounces, which is fine for most liquid measures, but for grog...it ain't right. I remember when every Irish bar served a pint that was 20 ounces, a proper drink for people that knew what they were doing. Over the years, one bar after the other have slipped in a pint glass that is a pint in the strictly technical, Clintonian sense, but is not what I want and is not what my friends want.
If a customer were to protest, they'd be told with a disengenous smile, " well, sir that is a pint." No it is not.
I want a law passed by the US Congress, the Dail, and the House of Commons tomorrow morning. It must hereby state that a pint in any public house shall be 20 ounces, not 16 ounces, and not any amount of millileters. Twenty ounces. Period. This one relic of imperialism is to be encouraged in all the nations of the world.
I'll take the one on the right, please.
Yeah, but 20 imperial ounces is smaller than 20 US ounces. Twenty ounces by US measures is .591 liters and an Imperial pint (20 UK ounces) is .568 liters.
None of this makes a good case for not adopting the metric system.
Posted by
Eagle |
October 26, 2006 5:13 AM