Egg Drinks

egg drinks go far back in time. Drinking raw eggs straight from the shell as a fortifier is undoubtedly as old as human beings themselves. With time, however, culinary refinement set in, and a whole family of egg drinks developed, in Europe consisting of many versions of hot and cold alcoholic drinks in the style of posset—hot, spiced milk curdled with wine or ale, with eggs later added. Caudle might be the earliest version, with the first recipe dating from early-fourteenth-century England. Thickened with bread as well as egg yolks, it is hardly a drink as such anymore but is very much a restorative, once favored for invalids and women in childbirth.