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Ale, to Mull
Put half a pint of ale, a clove, a little whole ginger, a piece of butter the size of a small marble, and a tea-spoonful of sugar, into a saucepan, and bring it to boiling point. Beat two eggs with a table-spoonful of cold ale, and pour the boiling ale into them, and then into a large jug. Pass the whole from one jug into another for some minutes, and at a good height. Return it to the saucepan and heat it again, but do not allow it to boil. Time, a quarter of an hour. Probable cost, 6d. Sufficient for one person.
A single-serving hot ale posset, thickened with egg. The whole thing succeeds or fails on temperature control at the last step.
- Never let it boil after the eggs go inOnce the beaten eggs are in, the mixture is a custard. Above roughly 180F it curdles into grainy threads that no amount of whisking will smooth. Hold it just below a simmer, stirring, until it thickens slightly.
- Half a pint, imperialA British half-pint is 10 fl oz, so about 1 1/4 US cups. The tablespoon of cold ale beaten with the eggs is a further quantity, not taken from the half pint.
- Butter the size of a small marbleRoughly a teaspoon, about 5 g. It is there for richness and a little gloss, not for body.
- Whole gingerA piece of dried whole ginger root, bruised, rather than ground. A thumbnail-sized knob of fresh ginger, sliced, gives a brighter result; either is fished out before serving.
- The ale to useA mild English brown ale or a malty bitter suits this. Heavily hopped modern IPAs turn harsh and bitter when heated and fight the sugar and clove.
- Pouring from jug to jugThis aerates the drink and raises a froth. Do it over the sink, from a height, with two large heatproof jugs; it also drops the temperature, which is probably why the recipe sends it back to the pan.
- The quarter of an hourProbably the whole operation rather than a single cooking time; the actual heating is a few minutes at each stage.
- YieldOne large mug, as stated. Scale straightforwardly, but temper the eggs with the hot ale slowly however much you make.
Mulled ale belongs to the same family as the posset and the caudle, warm spiced drinks thickened with egg that English households kept for cold nights, invalids and bedtime. The clove-and-ginger spicing here is centuries older than Cassell's, and the trick of pouring the drink repeatedly between two vessels at a height is the same one used for hot chocolate and for egg-flips, done to raise a froth and cool the mixture enough that the eggs do not scramble. That the entry gives a probable cost of sixpence and a yield of one person is characteristic of Cassell's Dictionary, which was written for a late-Victorian household budgeting carefully; ale was the cheap everyday drink, and the sixpence covers the eggs and sugar as well as the half-pint.