Sack Posset

Posset and Sack  - or Posset with Sack, is the ultimate eighteenth century drink. The word itself is so evocative: ' Sack Posset' if you say it a couple of times to yourself it has the pleasant hiss of a log on a fire on a winter's night.You can sip your Posset before retiring to bed with your feet in puce satin slippers up on a footstool, wrapped in a brocade dressing gown, candlelight reflected in the gleaming oak panelling. The stars in the sky above your house shining brightly down because there is no light pollution, a fox barks in the forest beyond the garden wall and your dear Leveret raises his head... I'm getting carried away, sorry.

Sack came from Spain, and the origin of the word is debated, some historians think the word comes from the French ' sec'  which sounds reasonable, except the wine is Spanish. Sack itself came from several places but the most famous came from Jerez dela Frontera and they made a type of sack called Sherris Sack which eventually morphed into what we now know as Sherry. So the closest we can come to drinking Sack is a good, dry Sherry from Jerez dela Frontera.

I'm going to make the middle recipe 'To make another Sack Posset' The recipe for ' an excellent Sack Posset' sounds a bit overwhelming - fifteen eggs, three quarters of a pound of white sugar and a pint of Canary - which is wine from the Canary Islands, it's like Madiera wine -sort of sweet. I can already feel my stomach disagreeing with this recipe's ingredients.  The 'another sack posset' is far simpler in taste and contains crumbled Naples Biscuits, which sounds rosy and lush.

Sack Posset

A quarter of a pint of milk (I used semi-skimmed, but I'm sure full milk is creamier)

Four crumbled Naples Biscuits (I made these beforehand - see my post Naples Biscuits)

Pinch of Nutmeg grated in

A little brown sugar or honey to sweeten

Half a pint of dry Sherry

Bring the milk gently to a boil and add the crumbled Naples Biscuits, add a grate of nutmeg and some honey or sugar to taste, keep stirring and add the Sherry.

Drink while warm and at the end of the day because it's guaranteed to put you to a rose scented sleep

And so to bed.

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