Posset Pot and Cover

ca.1700

Posset was a beverage made of hot milk curdled with ale, wine, or other alcoholic liquor and flavored with spices. Although the liquids would have been produced locally, the spices in the mixture came from the Caribbean, Asia, and the Middle East. The control of spices and the wealth derived from them were important incentives for global exploration and expansion.

This posset pot was produced in Bristol, a city in southwestern England that served as the primary port for the trade of enslaved Africans from Britain to the colonies. It is recorded that more than five hundred thousand Africans were sent from Bristol to toil throughout the Americas.