Baltimore's Crown Jewel/Size Matters

While 1/4 of OSB's staff will be working tonight, and another 1/4 will be out on the town, the remaining half will be at Camden for the debut of Baltimore's newest superstar (Baltimore superstar = oxymoron? You be the judge.) Matt Wieters will assume his rightful place behind the plate tonight, as Chad Moeller has been designated for assignment and Gregg Zaun becomes Wieter's backup and mentor. (Only in baseball can your understudy be your mentor.)

HH wishes best of luck to Wieters, and to the Orioles, who could not be happier to have their stud catcher on board: the last time the Birds had a winning season, the Macarena was en vogue, Monica Lewinsky jokes were novel, and Apple's new gadget was a sleek, user-friendly affair called the "iMac."

Show me what you got

Ah, remember the days when your bottle of rot-gut or vino came in a "fifth?" Well it still can, and often does. But with a proliferation of foreign spirits overtaking the American liquor market--and in honor of OSB's celebration of May 31st, A.K.A. Jeroboam's Day--HH is bringing you, the reader, a refresher on bottle sizes. These sizes apply not only to wine and spirits, but to beer as well. All sizes are based on the metric scale (I'm as patriotic as the next guy, but times have changed, and the 'fifth'--a fifth of a US Gallon--is no longer the standard.) For a more in-depth assay of volumes, consult the wiki.

Demi 375ml./2 glasses
"Demi" is the French word for "half." A demi is a half-bottle.

Standard 750ml./4 glasses
The "Standard" amount for a bottle.

Magnum 1500ml./8 glasses
Twice a standard. Frequently used for Champagne.

Jeroboam 3000ml./16 glasses
Four times a standard.

Franzia 4000ml./21 glasses
Admit it: you wanted to know how many glasses you could get out of a box.

Methuselah 6000ml./32 glasses
Generally speaking, the largest bottle today's consumer will ever find.

Salmanazar 9000ml./48 glasses
All further sizes are named after biblical kings

Balthazar 12000ml./64 glasses

Melchior 18000ml./96 glasses

Melchizedek 30000ml./192 glasses
(The largest bottle ever sold commercially)

While our 'Boam of Augustijn Tripel (review coming on Monday) and its sixteen cool glasses pale in comparison to the Methuselah or the Balthazar, we're quite proud of it nonetheless. And if the ambitious reader wishes to get his/her hands on a 'Boam of their own, they can skip on down to Devino's at U and 18th and talk to Bill.

Happy Weekend. Posts resume on Monday.

-HH