English wine cask units the mediæval French and Italian "botte") or pipe was half a tun, or 1008 pints. Tradition has it that George, Duke of Clarence, the brother of Edward IV of England, was drowned in a butt of malmsey on 18 February 1478. (However, Josephine Tey in "The Daughter of Time" suggests that "drowned in a butt of malmsey" means rather that George, Duke of Clarence, drank himself to death rather than literally drowning in a container of wine.) In Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Cask of Amontillado", the narrator claims he has received "a pipe of what passes for Amontillado".
Nuts and Wine applauded at the close", which may explain why it was performed nightly for 12 weeks; and it seems that the run came to an end not because the show was unsuccessful but because the management of the Empire Theatre changed during March 1914 and the new management—Alfred Butt and Charles B. Cochran—wanted a change. "Nuts and wine" is a reference to the British tradition of serving walnuts with the port that was passed around at the end of a dinner. Nuts and Wine Nuts and Wine was a theatrical revue, with lyrics by C. H. Bovill and P. G. Wodehouse