1903 The Flowing Bowl by Edward Spencer

184 THE FLOWING BOWL thereto of milk three pints, strain all through an hippocras bag, and sweeten it with a pound of sugar- candy. D'you kna-ow—as the curate in The Private Secretary says—I am not taking any hippocras to-day. "Wormwood imbib'd in cider," says another writer, " produceth the effect that it doth in wine." Evidently some nasty effect j only con ceive an admixture of absinthe and cider I That the ancients loved mixtures—and sweet mixtures—is pretty evident from the writings of Pliny and others. Were a man to invite me to drinic apple juice in the which had been bottled dried juniper-berries, I should probably hit that man in the eye, or send for a policeman. But two or three hundred years ago "juniper-cider " appears to have been a popular drink, although we read that " the taste thereof is somewhat strange, which by use will be much abated." Ginger, cloves, cinnamon, currants, honey, rosemary, raspberries, blackberries, elderberries, and " dove-July-flowers," all used to be put into cider, by way of flavouring ; " but the best addi tion," says the same writer, " that can be to it is that of the lees of Malaga Sack or Canary new and sweet, about a gallon to a hogshead ; this is a great improver and a purifier of cider." Evidently in those days they had some crude sort of ideas on the subject of Cider Cup.