1869 Drinking Cups and their Customs (Mixellany)

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CTOS ANB THEIR CUSTOMS,

Posset, wMcli full well shows us propriety of taste in its eompounder, {e 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. 1 * 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 u fertil sherries f 9 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, 11 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, tc 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,