1869 Drinking Cups and their Customs (Mixellany)

2 4

CTOS ANB THEIR CUSTOMS,

Posset, wMcli full well shows us propriety of taste in

its eompounder,

Boil a quart of creamwith, quantum

sufficit of sugar, mace, and nutmeg; take half a pint

of sack, and the same quantity of ale, and boil them well

together, adding sugar; these, being boiled separately,

are now to be added. Heat a pewter dish Tery hot, and

cover your basin with it, and let it stand by the fire

for two or three hours.

With regard to wines, wefind in the beginning of the

16th century that the demand for Malmsey was small;

and in 1581 we find Sack first spoken of, that being the

name applied to the vintages of Candia, Cyprus, and

Spain. Shakspeare pronounced Malmsey to be "ful-

som," and bestowed all Ms praises on

fertil sherries

and when Shakspeare makes use of the word Sack, he

evidently means by it a superior class of wine. Thus

Sir Launeelot Spareoek, in the

€€

London Prodigal/'

says,

Drawer* let me have

sack

for us old men:

For these girls and knaves small wines are best."

In all probability, the sack of Shakspeare was very much

allied to, if not precisely the same as, our sherry j for

lalstaff says,

You rogue! there is lime in this sack too

;

there is nothing but roguery to be found in villanous

man | yet a coward is worse than sack with lime in it / '

and we know that lime is used in the manufacture of

sherry, in order to free it from a portion of malic and

tartaric acids, and to assist in producing its dry quality,

Sack is spoken of as late as 1717, in a parish register,

which allows the minister a pint of it on the Lord's day,