Wednesday 25 November 2015

Message in a bottle...and a load of Coddswallop


Photo credit:Les Amis de la Brasserie de Montmorillon

When checking out the greniers  of our latest project (it's actually 2nd in the queue at the moment) I came across a box of bottles that intrigued me.




They are marked 'Brasserie de Montmorillon' but interestingly the bottles are marked 'from England' on the bottom.  


The design of the bottle makes it self-sealing with a rubber gasket mounted inside the neck against which an internal glass ball would be held in place by the carbonated contents which would normally be soda but interestingly in this case,we think,it was **beer.


The bottle's design was patented by Englishman Hiram Codd in 1870 and thus the 'Codd bottle' was born.
You can read the history of the bottle here

According to the site this is where the phrase “coddswallop” originated, this was a sarcastic reference to what was inside the bottle. No self-respecting **beer-swilling gent would be seen dead with a bottle of "CODDSWALLOP” (soda pop)!


**You can read a little about about the history of the brewery  'Brasserie de Montmorillon' here and here


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