[72] There were several kinds of Sack—Sherris, Malmsey, &c. The word is derived from saco, the skin in which Spanish wines were imported.
“We’ll have a posset at the latter end of a sea-coal fire,” wrote Shakspere.
A favourite drink of the seventeenth century was Buttered Ale. It was composed of ale (brewed without hops), butter, sugar and cinnamon. In Pepys’ Diary for December 5th, 1662, “a morning draught of buttered ale,” is mentioned. There is also reference to it in The Convivial Songster:—
And now the merry spic’d bowls went round, The gossips were void of shame too; In Butter’d Ale the priest half drown’d, Demands the infant’s name too.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century Beer Cups were much in vogue. Cuthbert Bede specifies, but does not describe, cups bearing the following names: Humpty-dumpty, Clamber-clown, Hugmatee, Stick-back, Cock Ale and Knock-me-down, and there were others called Foxcomb, Stiffle, Blind Pinneaux, Stephony and Northdown. Cock Ale was supposed to be, and no doubt was, a very strengthening and restorative compound. The receipt runs thus:—“Take a cock of half a year old, kill him and truss him well, and put into a cask twelve gallons of Ale to which add four pounds of raisins of the sun well picked, stoned, washed and dryed; sliced Dates, half a pound; nutmegs and mace two {386} ounces: Infuse the dates and spices in a quart of canary twenty-four hours, then boil the cock in a manner to a jelly, till a gallon of water is reduced to two quarts; then press the body of him extremely well, and put the liquor into the cask where the Ale is, with the spices and fruit, adding a few blades of mace; then put to it a pint of new Ale yeast, and let it work well for a day, and, in two days, you may broach it for use or, in hot weather, the second day; and if it proves too strong, you may add more plain Ale to palliate this restorative drink, which contributes much to the invigorating of nature.”
Among the various beverages which good house-wives deemed it their duty to brew were Elderberry Beer, or Ebulon, Cowslip Ale, Blackberry Ale, China Ale and Apricot Ale. Their names indicate to a great extent their composition. China Ale, however, was not a term applied by wits to tea, as has been suggested, but was composed of ale flavoured with China root and bruised coriander seed, which were tied up in a linen bag, and left in the liquor until it had done working. The ale then stood fourteen days, and was afterwards bottled. This was the proper China Ale, but, according to an old cookery book, “the common sort vended about Town is nothing more (at best) than ten-shilling beer, put up in small stone bottles, with a little spice, lemon peel, and raisins or sugar.”
Ebulon, which is said to have been preferred by some people to port, was made thus: In a hogshead of the first and strongest wort was boiled one bushel of ripe elderberries. The wort was then strained and, when cold, worked (i.e. fermented) in a hogshead (not an open tun or tub). Having lain in cask for about a year it was bottled. Some persons added an infusion of hops by way of preservative and relish, and some likewise hung a small bag of bruised spices in the vessel. White Ebulon was made with pale malt and white elderberries.
Blackberry Ale was composed of a strong wort made from two bushels of malt and ¼lb. hops. To this was added the juice of a peck of ripe blackberries and a little yeast. After fermentation the cask was stopped up close for six weeks, the ale was then bottled, and was fit to drink at the end of another fortnight.
In the London and County Brewer (1744), is this receipt for Cowslip Ale: Take, to a barrel of ale a bushel of the flowers of cowslip pick’d out of the husks, and when your ale hath done working put them loose in the barrel without bruising. Let it stand a fortnight before you bottle it, and, when you bottle it, put a lump of sugar in each bottle. {387}
The same book enlightens us as to the composition of “an ale that will taste like Apricot Ale”:—“Take to every gallon of ale one ounce and a half of wild carrot seed bruised a little, and hang them in a leathern bag in your barrel until it is ready to drink, which will be in three weeks; then bottle it with a little sugar in every bottle.”