Edinburgh Ale: James Ballantine, a writer and stained-glass artist, and the son of an Edinburgh brewer, using a 19th-century drinking glass called “ale flute”., circa 1844

The skills involved in producing calotypes were not only of a technical nature. Hill’s sociability, humour and his capacity to gauge the sitters’ characters all played a crucial part in his photography. One contemporary account describes a popular edinburgh ale (younger's) as "a potent fluid, which almost glued the lips of the drinker together, and of which few, therefore, could dispatch more than a bottle. "[1]. Date: circa 1844. Dimensions: 14 × 19.7 cm (5.5 × 7.7 in). Medium: calotype, negative, salted paper print. Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art.