Sack (drink)

“ Redding states that the term ‘sack’ was applied to sweet and dry wines of canary, Xeres, or Malaga. Vines are said to have been first planted in the Canary Islands in the reign of Charles V., imported thither from the Rhine. Canary was much drunk formerly; the bibbers of it were dubbed ‘canary-birds,’ and the wine ‘canary-sacke.’ [89] An old writer growls, ‘sacke is their chosen nectar; they love it better than their own souls; they will never leave off sacke, until they have sackt out all their silver ”

“ The Grace-cup and Loving-cup appear to be synonymous terms for a beverage the drinking of which has been from time immemorial a great feature at the corporation dinners in London and other large towns, as also at the feasts of the various trade companies and the Inns of Court, and which is a compound of wine and spices, formerly called "Sack." It is handed round the table before the removal of the cloth, in large silver cups, from which no one is allowed to drink before the guest on either side of him has stood up; the person who drinks then rises and bows to his neighbours. ”

“ This will draw all the dregs to it, and swim at the top, so that you may skim all off together. And this she holdeth the best way of clarifying the Liquor, and making it look pale. Then pour it into vessels as above to cool. Let it stand three days; then Tun it up into a Sack cask without yest or Spice, and keep it stopped till it work. Then let it be open, till it have done working, filling it up still with other honey-drink. Then stop it up close for a year or two. You may at first stop it so, that the strong working may throw out the stopple, and yet keep it close, till it work strongly. ”

“ I am sure, gentlemen, if I had kenn'd ony servants of our gude king had stood at the door—But wad ye please to drink some ale—or some brandy—or a cup of canary sack, or claret wine?" making a pause between each offer as long as a stingy bidder at an auction, who is loth to advance his offer for a favourite lot.
"Claret for me," said one fellow.
"I like ale better," said another, "provided it is right juice of John Barleycorn."
"Better never was malted," said Milnwood; "I can hardly say sae muckle for the claret. It's thin and cauld, gentlemen."
"Brandy will cure that," said a third fellow ”

“ This beverage, though somewhat too potent for modern palates, may, by proper dilution, be rendered no unworthy cup even in the present age. From the same noble hand we get a recipe for Sack Posset, which full well shows us propriety of taste in its compounder. "Boil a quart of cream with quantum sufficit of sugar, mace, and nutmeg; take half a pint of sack, and the same quantity of ale, and boil them well together, adding sugar; these, being boiled separately, are now to be added. Heat a pewter dish very hot, and cover your basin with it, and let it stand by the fire for two or three hours." ”

“ At a banquet, lasting five or six hours or longer, a man "strong in saké" may conceivably drink ten go (a go is about one-third of a pint) before achieving drunkenness, but most people would be affected by three go. Some of the topers who boast of the quantity of saké they can consume—I have heard of men declaring that they could drink twenty go—are cheated late in the evening by the waiting-maids. ”

“ Saxon descent may have had much to do with the development of our own peculiar cerevisial taste—taste, that is, for beer with some body and a good strong flavour of malt. There can be no doubt that, compared with the produce of other countries, our beer is still the best—if only one's liver will stand it—the most tasty, the most nourishing—"meat, drink and cloth," as Sir John Linger puts it—beer which will occasionally "make a cat speak and a wise man dumb." The Saxons always had a liking for beer with something in it—not merely "strong water," as Sir Richard l'Estrange calls the small stuff. ”

“ The stanch old soakers, on the other hand,—men who, if put on tap, would have yielded a red alcoholic liquor by way of blood,—usually confined themselves to plain brandy-and-water, gin, or West India rum; and, oftentimes, they prefaced their dram with some medicinal remark as to the wholesomeness and stomachic qualities of that particular drink. ”

“ To promote this, feminine chewing is found efficacious. The taste, says Simmonds, is said to resemble that of ale, but is not “quite so agreeable—this may easily be believed.” Cela dépend, as in the case of the chica of the sierras of South America.
Japan.
Kæmpfer, in his History of Japan, i., 121, tells us that in the manufacture of Sacke or Saki, [119] a strong and wholesome beer produced from rice, the Japanese are not excelled by any other people. This beer, a very ancient drink, is white when fresh, but becomes brown, [233] if it remains long in the cask. ”

“ Sake, or rice beer, is always passed round before the visitors leave, in little cups with the gods of luck at the bottom of them. Sake, when heated, mounts readily to the head, and a single small cup excites the half-witted man-servant to some very foolish musical performances. ”

“ Hither small parties of men are continually repairing to “take a drink.” Perhaps they each choose a different kind of punch, or sling, or cocktail, requiring various combinations, in different proportions, of whisky, brandy, or gin, with sugar, bitters, peppermint, absinthe, curaçao, lemon-peel, mint, and what not; but the bar-keeper mixes them all as if by magic, when each man, taking his glass, and tipping those of all the rest as he mutters some sentiment, swallows the compound and wipes his moustache. ”

“ A cold climate demands hot cordials. There was no elaborate system of hot-water pipes in the draughty, cold, and damp Elizabethan mansions with their rush-covered floors. It was a necessity, apart from long and deep potations of strong drinks, to take a nightcap or caudle-cup of something hot. In the eighteenth century the drinking of hot punch superseded this. But in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the custom of the posset of hot sack with spices and having milk and eggs, as a supper beverage was universal. Not that the posset-cup was idle in the daytime. ”

“ It is only by repeated heatings, whereby its quality is injured, that they are able to keep their beer for a very considerable length of time. We learn, from the introduction to this work, that the annual consumption of saké in Japan is equivalent to about six gallons per head of the population. If the saké were diluted twice, so as to be of about the same strength as English beer, the consumption, twelve gallons a head, would be but little more than one third the consumption of beer in England, thirty-four gallons a head. ”

“ Every reveller has his saké gourd, or tiny tub slung over his shoulder, which he empties and refills, as long as his money and consciousness last. Every man offers friend, neighbor, and stranger a cup of the cheering spirit. One booth in three is a saké stand, and pyramids of straw-covered saké tubs stand before every tea house. This saké, or rice brandy, tastes and looks like the weakest sherry, although it scents the air with alcoholic fumes. Made everywhere in Japan, the saké distilled from the rice of the broad Osaka plain is most esteemed by connoisseurs for a peculiarly delicate flavor. ”

“ This singular phenomenon, which has struck the imagination of men ever since the beginning of the world, is accompanied by an intense heat and a bubbling of the whole mass, but as the sugar disappears the movement slowly ceases. As soon as quiet is restored, our immense cask is found to be filled with an alcoholic liquid which is the habitual drink of men living in southern countries. ”

“ The quantities of alcohol, water, and sugar in an imperial pint of Brandy, Rum, and Gin, are shown in the Case 39.
The physical degeneracy and moral degradation attendant upon taking alcohol in excess are well known; and no language is too strong to condemn the folly and wickedness of those who thus convert one of the blessings of Providence into a curse.
In Cases 38 the visitor will see samples of alcohol obtained from various sources; also a variety of flavored spirits, or “liqueurs,” from various countries, and a Japanese spirit or liqueur, distilled from rice, called “soke,” or “saki.” ”

“ The brewing of saké is, therefore, of relatively less importance than that of beer in England, and this is doubtless to be ascribed to the enormous consumption of tea, which serves at all times, in summer and in winter, as the national beverage. ”

“ There is old Scotch or old Burton for the lover of strong beer, porter for the labouring classes, stout for the weakly, and last, but far from least, that splendid liquid, pale ale, which, when bottled, vies with champagne in its excellence and delicacy of flavour, and beats it altogether out of the field when we take into consideration its sustaining and restorative powers. ”

“ Excellent claret and champagne were liberally distributed among the Chief's immediate neighbours; whisky, plain or diluted, and strong beer refreshed those who sat near the lower end. Nor did this inequality of distribution appear to give the least offence. Every one present understood that his taste was to be formed according to the rank which he held at table; and, consequently, the tacksmen and their dependants always professed the wine was too cold for their stomachs, and called, apparently out of choice, for the liquor which was assigned to them from economy. ”

“ They ferment a kind of intoxicating liquor from the root of a tree, and also from their own millet and Japanese rice, but Japanese saké is the one thing that they care about. They spend all their gains upon it, and drink it in enormous quantities. It represents to them all the good of which they know, or can conceive. Beastly intoxication is the highest happiness to which these poor savages aspire, and the condition is sanctified to them under the fiction of “drinking to the gods.” Men and women alike indulge in this vice. ”

“ They weigh in the neighborhood of one hundred and fifty pounds of the limpest, deadest, weight in the world and without decent "ears" at the end of the sack to afford a hold. Frequently a sack would break, and we would help ourselves to the sugar. The taste is pleasant at first, and we were remarkably liberal in our indulgence, perhaps no more so than a crew of girls would be if they were loading a cargo of chocolate creams. ”

“ We are tolerably loyal in this our time; still it is problematical if there exist man or woman in Merry England, in our day who would whisk a mixture for sixty minutes by the clock, even with the prospect of drinking to the reigning monarch.
Brandy Sour.
This is simplicity itself. A teaspoonful of sifted sugar in a small tumbler, a little lemon rind and juice, one wine-glassful of brandy. Fill nearly up with crushed ice, shake and strain. Whisky Sour is merely Scotch whisky treated in the same kind, open-handed manner, with the addition of a few drops of raspberry syrup. ”

“ As the Japanese always drink their wine hot, a copper kettle for heating saké is a necessity in every household. On ceremonial occasions, such as marriages, the saké-kettles are of the costliest and handsomest kind, being beautifully lacquered. Bride and groom being ready, the wine-kettles, cups and two bottles are handed down. Two pretty servant-maids now bring in a hot kettle of wine and fill the bottles. To one bottle is fastened by a silken cord a male butterfly, and to the other a female. ”

“ Before using the glass, rinse it in hot water.
↑ Sugar does not readily dissolve in spirits; it is necessary, therefore, in making hot toddy or punch to put in the water before the spirits, or at least sufficient of the water to entirely dissolve the sugar, taking care to warm the glass before pouring boiling water into it.
The best Hot Whiskey Punch is made with pulverized rock-candy. This is preferable to sugar, for any hot drink made of whiskey or brandy. ”

“ A pint of Scotch ale, a pint of mild beer, half a pint of brandy, a pint of sherry, half a pound of loaf sugar, and plenty of grated nutmeg. This cup may be drank either hot or cold.
Egg Flip.
Add the whites and yolks of three eggs, beaten together with three ounces of lump sugar, to half a pint of strong ale; heat the mixture nearly to the boiling-point; then put in two wine-glasses of gin or rum (the former being preferable) , with some grated nutmeg and ginger; add another pint of hot ale, and pour the mixture frequently from one jug to another before serving. ”

“ Turning first to Scotland, there is no fear, I say, that prohibition will be adopted there: and this from the simple reason that the Scotch do not drink. I have elsewhere alluded to the extraordinary misapprehension that exists in regard to the Scotch people and their sense of humour. I find a similar popular error in regard to the use of whiskey by the Scotch. Because they manufacture the best whiskey in the world, the Scotch, in popular fancy, are often thought to be addicted to the drinking of it. ”

“ But when we have been careful in all the above Particulars, if the Casks are not in good order, still the Brewing may be spoil'd. New Casks are apt to give Drink an ill Taste, if they are not well scalded and season'd several days successively, before they are put in use; and for old Casks, if they stand any time out of use, they are apt to grow musty: unslack'd Lime, about a Gallon to a Hogshead, with about six Gallons of Water put in with it, and the Hogshead presently stopp'd up, will clear it of its Taint, if the same be repeated four or five times ”