is a question which has often been asked. It was a common name for a drink in the time of Shakespeare, and Falstaff had a terrible reputation as a sackster. The exact nature of the wine is uncertain, but the name is supposed to be derived {32} from the Spanish _seco_, and the French _sec_, “dry.” Canary (a sort of white Madeira) was often the wine meant; and in old churchwarden’s accounts the word sack frequently occurs, as used as a communion wine, _i.e._ Madeira and port mixed. That sack was imported from Spain is certain, and it was first of all sold, in England, in apothecaries’ shops, as a cordial medicine. The Excise authorities of the time, if there were any, were in all probability not quite as busy as at the present day. The name Canary was formerly applied to dry, white wines, which were frequently seasoned with sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, roasted apples, and eggs. _Sack Posset_ [Sir Walter Raleigh’s Recipe.] Boil together half a pint of sherry and half a pint of ale, and add gradually a quart of boiling cream or milk. Sweeten the mixture well, and flavour with grated nutmeg. Put into a heated dish, cover, and stand by the fire for two or three hours. And if you can see the double ox-fences in Northamptonshire next morning, there is not much the matter with your liver. Here is the method of manufacturing _English Sack_, which must be a poor, ill-favoured sort of drink. It was also known as Saragossa wine. To every quart of water put a sprig of rue, and to every gallon a handful of fennel-roots, boil these {33} half an hour, then strain it out, and to every gallon of this liquor—ugh—put three pounds of honey; boil it two hours, and scum it well, and when ’tis cold pour it off and tun it into a vessel, or such cask as is fit for it; keep it a year in the vessel, and then bottle it. ’Tis a very good sack. And the butler who would place this on my table would get a good sack, too. Mustard-and-water is cheaper and swifter. Canary and Rhenish were also drunk freely during the Elizabethan period—the English Sack recipe belongs to the Charles I. period—and long before that usquebaugh, or whisky in all its original sin, was in demand, although the Highlanders were no dabs at distillation until the sixteenth century. Usquebaugh, by the way, is derived from the old Gaelic _Uisge-beatha_, “Water of Life,” and under this name both Irish and Scotch whisky were originally known. But this simple water of life was not tasty enough for some palates, therefore vile men invented a special blend for the benefit of the wealthy, and those who had not much work to do next morning. _To make Usquebaugh._