Jug and bottle / Bottle and Jug / Family Department / Off Licence Counter /Outdoor

Small section of pub, with a separate entrance from the street, selling drink for consumption off the premises.

In the days before supermarkets it was commonplace to have a separate area where off-sales could be made. The typical Jug and Bottle had a short corridor with a hatch at the end, usually with a bench situated near the hatch to have a beer as your jug was filled to take out.

Signs of this bygone trade are still in evidence with doorways and windows bearing the terms `Jug & Bottle', `Family Department', or `Outdoor' in etched glass.

Jug and Bottle blog - Hopefully finding remaining examples of Bottle and Jugs

Jug and Bottle, Off Sales Counter, Family Department Jug and Bottle, Off Sales Counter, Family Department are the separate entrances with a simple window hatch / counter where you could buy beer for drinking off the premises.

To stop people selling alcohol in the street as some people did at the turn of the last century places where required to get a licence to sell alcohol to stop the practice of street traders. These licensed places sold “to consume on the premises". For takes outs, they had to be consumed "off the premises".

There are two kinds of license under the licensing act, ‘on sales’ and ‘off sales’. It is to do with where the alcohol is to be consumed. An on license if for the sale of alcohol to be consumed ‘on the premises’ and an ‘off license’ is for alcohol to be consumed off the premises.

An off licence is a premises that is only allowed by the terms set in the licensing laws to sell alcohol for consumption off the premises. A bar would therefore have an 'on' licence. Pubs can have both an on and off license which allows the landlord to sell alcohol for consumption on and off the premises.