I enjoy the language of beer. Wort. Bung. Mash Tun. But I really like the local words for quantities or container sizes of beer. Like "rigger" which I saw for the first time today in this oddly detailed article:
It took a little adjusting for us to appreciate the plastic soda bottle-type riggers in use when we moved here. But we quickly learned that, in the short term, riggers keep the beer in good stead. Riggers are made of PET, a form of polyethylene that is lighter than glass, recyclable and poses little breakage hazard. But it does have some drawbacks. PET is not entirely air-tight, and over time will let in oxygen and let out the pressure that keeps the fizz in the beer. Some commercial PET beer bottles have an interior coating to keep out the oxygen, but we could not confirm that New Zealand riggers use this technology. PET also lets in the UV light that can spoil beers at equal or greater rates to glass of the same colour. Amber is the best protection.
There was a brewery in Ontario, Algonquin, in the mid-90s that sold its beer in one litre plastic bottles like this and they were fine and dandy... but what is up with the word "rigger"? The article doesn't say. The photo is from a certain Br3nda's photo stream on Flickr but it doesn't explain either. Rigger can mean someone who rigs something, usually with pulleys and ropes. Or someone up in the rigging of a ship. It can be a paint brush or even a sort of sailing ship, too. Growlers growl when the beer sloshes about. When does the beer make a rigger rig?
Comments
The Beer Nut - June 17, 2011 6:08 AM
I noticed lots of the new Czech micros use the 1L PET bottle. I'm sure Evan can tell us the Czech nickname. Or invent one.
Douglas McLeod - June 17, 2011 7:31 AM
Drink too many and you'll end up in rigger mortis.
redJez - June 17, 2011 8:01 AM
it's South Island Kiwi slang for a flagon of beer purchased takeaway from an off licence. it may come pre-packaged in a plastic bottle or in some places you can take you own bottle and fill it yourself, any size, using bar taps for a discount (cos you don't have to pay for the bottle)
Alan - June 17, 2011 8:51 AM
But why? There is usually an underlying reason like rigged is slang for getting drunk. If this was Maritime Canada, there would be degrees of the drunkenness: right rigged, right some rigged, right some Jeesely rigged, etc.
Gary Gillman - June 17, 2011 9:08 AM
Alan, a bit of sleuthing online shows that rigger was originally used to describe draft beer carried temporarily in a square gin bottle. The term later was transferred to the modern PET bottle. (By the way Connors in Mississauga, ON was selling beer in these in the late 80's).
Gin in square bottles was Dutch gin, or jenever gin (sometimes spelled genever or geneva). Dutch gin was a big seller in New Zealand, as it was in Quebec, due no noubt to early maritime influence there. The French in Quebec called it "le gros gin". The bottle was often square because you could ship more that way and breakage was minimised in the heavy bottles used.
Now, whence the link to rigger? In looking up what riggers do, they work often with "gin poles" which are poles to which a pulley is attached to lift something, it's used in certain tower constructions. This is purely speculative, but I wonder if the term rigger was a kind of inside joke, using a term related to gin pole to describe another beverage.
Gary
Gary Gillman - June 17, 2011 9:41 AM
A more simple explanation: riggers (the trade) set things up, they set up and level machines for example. A drink famously "sets you up", puts you in a good mood, makes you level (for many). The measure for many old liquor bottles was 40 oz., the British quart. So a gin bottle, later a PET, holding 40 ounces would set you up mate, that's two pints of beer.
Gary
Craig - June 22, 2011 9:12 PM
I work with a guy from New Zealand. He's been on vacation so I didn't get a chance to ask him about the term "rigger." He said he had heard the term, but said flagon was more common. In fact, he said rigger was pretty uncommon. He had no idea why they were named that.
Rob McFarlane - July 12, 2012 11:13 PM
I don't know where the term rigger comes from but in the South Island at least it refers to a 2ltr Pep bottle. Some Pubs and Bottle stores have special taps for fulling the rigger or an attachment that fits onto the beer tap. When I was growing up we had flagons or peters which were a 1/2 gallon glass bottle