Antique Scottish Drinking Vessels

Here we have some 19th century drinking vessels made in Scotland.

Three of them, the luggie and the bickers, are constructed of wooden staves of alternating woods usually sycamore and alder. The really skilled part is the feather banding between each stave, perfectly cut to fill the gaps in order to make the vessel watertight. This would have been done by hand with a knife. Each stave is grooved horizontally on the inside near the base to take the bottom. The vessel would then be bound with willow, carefully chosen for its size and would be laced meticulously to hold the staves in position.

A luggie is a circular straight sided vessel with one of the staves extending to be used as a handle so that it could be used easier as a ladle. The one in the images is a particularly large example measuring 19cm w and the handle is 27cm long, the majority are usually around 10cm w. The luggie would be filled up with ale and most probably used to refill the bickers.

The word bicker stems from the root word beaker, these two Scottish bickers again are circular staved vessel but two of the staves extend out to for lugs or handles. The large one measures 17cm w including the handles and the small example measures 8cm w.

The fourth vessel is a Scottish quaich a shallow curved circular bowl with two handles made from one piece of wood, this example has a round bottom. These quaich were used for drinking spirits and the small ones would have been for individual use, larger ones would have been passed round and were for ceremonial use.