While there is no reason for supposing that sweet champagne was not as greatly relished by the women of Colonial times as it is to-day, it is true, notwithstanding, that, owing to the greater need of economy, they were obliged to be content for the most part with saccharine tipples of a less expensive nature. Among such, besides mulled wine, was the sack-posset, a favourite drink at weddings and social festivities, borrowed from England, with its numerous ingredients, and favoured alike by miss and matron. 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;