"_Hostess_ (offering ale to Sir John Linger). I never taste malt-liquor, but they say ours is well-hopp'd.
_Sir John._ Hopp'd! why if it had hopp'd a little further, it would have hopp'd into the river.
_Hostess._ I was told ours was very strong.
_Sir John._ Yes! strong of the water. I believe the brewer forgot the malt, or the river was too near him. Faith! it is more whip-belly-vengeance; he that drinks most has the worst share."
This would hardly seem a word for "polite conversation," though it was certainly a term in common use. Its vulgarity is in keen contrast to the name of another "small drink," a name which brings to the mental vision thoughts of the good cheer, the genial hospitality, the joy of living, of Elizabethan days. A black letter copy of the _Loyal Garland_, a collection of songs of the seventeenth century, thus names the drink in this gay song:--
"To the Tavern lets away! There have I a Mistress got, Cloystered in a Pottle Pot; Plump and bounding, soft and fair, Bucksome, sweet and debonair, And they call her _Sack_, my Dear!"
It is vain to enter here into a discussion of exactly what sack was, since so much has been written about it. The name was certainly applied to sweet wines from many places. A contemporary authority, Gervayse Markham, says in The _English Housewife_, "Your best Sackes are of Seres in Spain, your smaller of Galicia or Portugall: your strong Sackes are of the islands of the Canaries."
Sack was, therefore, a special make of the strong, dry, sweet, light-colored wines of the sherry family, such as come from the South, from Portugal, Spain, and the Canary Islands. By the seventeenth century the name was applied to all sweet wines of this class, as distinguished from Rhenish wines on one hand and red wines on the other. Many do not wish to acknowledge that sack was sherry, but there was little distinction between them. Sherris-sack, named by Shakespeare, was practically also sherry.
Sack was so cheap that it could be used by all classes. From an original license granted by Sir Walter Raleigh, in 1584, to one Bradshaw to keep a tavern we learn that sack was then worth two shillings a gallon.
Perhaps the most famous use of sack was in the making of sack-posset, that drink of brides, of grooms, of wedding and christening parties. A rhymed rule for sack-posset found its way into many collections, and into English and American newspapers. It is said to have been written by Sir Fleetwood Fletcher. It was thus printed in the _New York Gazette_ of February 13, 1744:--