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Sweets to the Sweet: Sack-Posset
The recipe in rhyme for this concoction, after Sir Fleetwood Fletcher, soon became as familiar as Sydney Smith's recipe for salad in the following century: "A recipe for all Young Ladies that are going to be Married. To make a Sack-Posset: From famed Barbadoes on the Western Main Fetch sugar half a pound; fetch Sack from Spain A pint; and from the Eastern Indian Coast Nutmeg, the glory of our Northern toast; O'er flaming coals together let them heat Till the all-conquering Sack dissolves the sweet.
O'er such another fire set eggs, twice ten New born from crowing cock and speckled hen; Stir them with steady hand, and conscience pricking To see the untimely fate of twenty chicken.
From shining shelf take down your brazen skillet, A quart of milk from gentle cow will fill it; When boiled and cooked put milk and Sack to egg, Unite them firmly like the triple league.
Then, covered close, together let them dwell Till Miss twice sings, 'You must not kiss and tell!' Each lad and lass snatch up their murdering spoon, And fall on fiercely like a starved dragoon.” Metheglin and negus were well known to our foremothers. There is no record to show that they became partial to "sack," except as sweetened and spiced according to the manner of posset. It is recorded, however, that, eschewing the stronger punch composed of spirits, they were fond of mulled wine, Malaga and Madeira, and were far from disdaining the universal beverage, cider, even in its "hard" form, when mulled.
The verse gives quantities but not much method, and the method is where a posset succeeds or fails. Read it as a hot custard-and-wine drink built in three stages: sweetened wine, beaten eggs, boiled milk.
- The hinge: keep it below a simmerEverything after the milk goes in has to stay under about 175F. If the mixture boils the eggs seize and the wine drives the curd hard and grainy instead of leaving it soft and spoonable.
- What sack wasSack was a strong white wine imported from Spain and the Canaries, often fortified and generally drier than a modern dessert wine, which is why period recipes sweeten it so heavily. A dry amontillado or a medium oloroso is the nearest thing on a shop shelf; Madeira, which the passage also mentions, works too.
- Barbadoes sugarHalf a pound of West Indian sugar meant unrefined cane, dark and slightly molasses-tasting. Muscovado or a dark brown sugar gives the right flavour; white granulated will taste thin against the wine.
- Twice ten eggsPeriod hen eggs were probably smaller than modern large eggs, so somewhat fewer than twenty modern eggs would be nearer the mark, though exact period weights are not recorded. Either way, this is a party quantity.
- The brazen skilletBrass and unlined copper react badly with acidic wine and with eggs. Use stainless steel or enamelled cast iron for both the wine and the milk.
- Order of assemblyWarm sugar and sack together only until the sugar dissolves. Beat the eggs separately over gentle heat, then pour the boiled milk and the hot sack into them in a slow stream, whisking, rather than tipping the eggs into hot liquid.
- "Covered close, together let them dwell"This is the setting stage, a few minutes off the heat and undisturbed. A proper posset separates into a foamy top, a soft curd, and a spiced wine liquor underneath, and stirring it flat defeats the point.
- Nutmeg and safety of the eggsGrate the nutmeg fresh; pre-ground loses most of its perfume in a hot drink. The eggs are heated but never held at a stated temperature, so if you are serving anyone vulnerable, use pasteurized eggs or take the custard to 160F on a thermometer.
- YieldA pint of wine, a quart of milk and twenty eggs will fill about twelve to sixteen punch cups. Quartering the recipe gives a sensible three or four servings.
A posset is a medieval English survival: hot milk or cream deliberately curdled with ale, wine or citrus, sweetened and spiced, drunk as a nightcap, a restorative for the sick and a wedding-night ritual, which is why this one is addressed to "all Young Ladies that are going to be Married." Wealthy households owned dedicated spouted posset pots so the clear spiced liquor could be sipped from beneath the curd while the rich top was eaten with a spoon. Sack, the wine called for here, was the fortified white shipped from Spain and the Canary Islands and drunk in enormous quantities in Shakespeare's England, the same stuff Falstaff lives on. The rhyme itself circulated widely in eighteenth-century miscellanies under the name of Sir Fleetwood Fletcher, and it is set beside Sydney Smith's celebrated verse recipe for salad dressing. The closing note is about American drinking habits rather than the posset: metheglin was spiced mead, negus a hot mixture of fortified wine, water, sugar and spice traditionally said to be named for a Colonel Francis Negus, and cider is called "the universal beverage."