The butt or pipe is an old English unit of wine

Wine

Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...

 casks, holding two hogshead

Hogshead

A hogshead is a large cask of liquid . More specifically, it refers to a specified volume, measured in either Imperial units or U.S. customary units, primarily applied to alcoholic beverages such as wine, ale, or cider....

s (approximately 475 to 480 litre

Litre

pic|200px|right|thumb|One litre is equivalent to this cubeEach side is 10 cm1 litre water = 1 kilogram water The litre is a metric system unit of volume equal to 1 cubic decimetre , to 1,000 cubic centimetres , and to 1/1,000 cubic metre...

s).

Historically, a hogshead varied in size, but today in the United States is most commonly 63 U.S. gallon

Gallon

The gallon is a measure of volume. Historically it has had many different definitions, but there are three definitions in current use: the imperial gallon which is used in the United Kingdom and semi-officially within Canada, the United States liquid gallon and the lesser used United States dry...

s (7 buttkins; ca. 238.5 litres), so a butt is now 126 U.S. gallons (equivalent to about 104 imperial gallons).

Tradition has it that George, Duke of Clarence, the brother of Edward IV of England

Edward IV of England

Edward IV was King of England from 4 March 1461 until 3 October 1470, and again from 11 April 1471 until his death. He was the first Yorkist King of England...

, was drowned in a butt of malmsey on February 18, 1478.

In Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

's short story "The Cask of Amontillado

The Cask of Amontillado

"The Cask of Amontillado" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in the November 1846 issue of Godey's Lady's Book....

", the narrator claims he has received "a pipe of what passes for Amontillado

Amontillado

Amontillado is a variety of sherry, characterized by being darker than fino but lighter than oloroso. It is named for the Montilla region of Spain, where the style originated in the 18th century, although the name 'amontillado' is sometimes used commercially as a simple measure of colour to label...

".