1899 The Mixicologist by C F Lawlor

76

THE MIXICOLOGIST.

Eecipe for the Wassail Bowl. Put into a quart of warm beer one pound of raw sugar,on which-grate a nutmeg and some ginger; then add four glasses ofsherry and two quarts more of heer, with three slices oflemon; add more sugar, if required, and serve it with three slices of toasted bread floating in it. Another genus of beverages, if so it may be termed, of considerable antiquity, comprise those compositions having milk for their basis, or,as Dr.Johnson describes them,"milk curdled with wine and other acids,"known under the name ofPossets—such as milk-possets,pepper- posset, cider-posset, or egg-posset. Most of these, now- a-days,are restricted to the bed-chamber, where they are taken in cases of catarrh, to act as agreeable sudorifics. They appear to us to be too much associated with tallow applied to the nose,to induce us to give recipes for their composition, although in olden times they seem to have been drunk on festive occasions, as Shakspeare says—

"We will have-a posset at the end of asea-coal fire;"

and Sir John Suckling, who lived in the early part of the 17th century, has in one of his poems the line—

"In came the bridesmaids with the posset."