Coldengham, New York
Store of Cadwallader Colden, Jr.
Wine
Today was Good Friday and the last day the store would be open until after Easter. It was one of the rare occasions where the store was closed two days in a row: Saturday and Easter Sunday.
The shopping activity was just slightly more than an average day: 29 items on 14 accounts. Henderick Crist purchased one-half gallon of wine on this day, 250 years ago.
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Search the DayBookThis article is one in a series of a daily accountings of Colden Store transactions. Be sure you read the first installment for an introduction to the store. You should also read this article which appeared in the Journal of the Orange County Historical Society.
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Rum was clearly the alcoholic beverage of choice at the Colden Store. In the prior seven months, rum had been purchased on almost 1000 occasions!
Wine was also sold at the store. The sizes of the purchases varied wildly: 1 pint, 1 1/4 pint, 1 1/2 pint, 1 quart, 1/2 gallon, 1 gallon, 2 gallon. This indicates that the wine probably was transported in a cask and distributed to smaller containers in the store.
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| Cask of Madeira. Image courtesy of WineFolly.com |
The wine price was predominantly nine-shillings-per-gallon. Half gallons therefore sold for four and one-half shillings. However quarts, pints and half-pints, which were the majority of the purchases, were almost always sold for twelve-shillings-per-gallon. Was this price inconsistency with the gallon price a result of the smaller volumes being sold in bottles or was it just a volume related surcharge?
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| Wine purchases in the prior seven months sorted by Cost (P S d). |
It is very likely that this wine was "Madeira Wine." This wine was fortified with brandy which preserved it on the ocean crossings. The American colonies were said to have consumed one-quarter of all Madeira wine. To quote the Colonial Williamsburg website: Madeira Wine "... came from the Portuguese Atlantic island of that name. This beverage not only survived the long ocean voyage but improved with the tossing in a ship's hold. It also proved resilient in the steamy South. About 1750, somebody decided to fortify Madeira with brandy. The new taste appealed to Americans, and Madeira became the preeminent wine in British North America."
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| 1797 Madeira. Image courtesy of FinestAndRarest.com |
The Colden Store had no transactions on Saturday, April 2 or on Easter Sunday, April 3. Perhaps Colden traveled to New York City on this occasion to conduct some trading as the Hudson was now free of ice.
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