s Puzzle Jug, c.1600-1750 - Hull Museums Collections

Puzzle Jug, c.1600-1750

This jug is a puzzle. The challenge is to drink the contents without spilling them. It sounds simple enough, but the jug’s neck is full of holes. Surely it’s impossible to drink without liquid spilling out?

The solution is that the jug has a hidden tube running round the rim and down the handle. The drinker must suck from one of the three spouts on the rim. The other two spouts have to be closed off first.

Puzzle jugs were a popular source of entertainment in homes and taverns, especially in the 1700s and 1800s. They were developed from earlier drinking puzzles, such as the fuddling cup.

Fuddling cups were made up of three or more cups linked together with tubes. The challenge was to drink from one of the cups by tilting it, without spilling the contents of the other cups. The solution was to drink from the cups in a particular order.

The challenge of drinking from a puzzle jug was often set out in a rhyme on the side of the jug. In comparison, the phrase painted on the side of this jug is simpler: ‘Remember thy end’. This phrase has associations with death and the Christian belief in a day of judgement by God. We don’t know why such a serious phrase was painted onto the jug; it’s a puzzle within a puzzle.