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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.