[ Black Drop ] Sarah Creighton Wilkins
Date: Late 18th or early 19th century; exact date unknown.
Source:
Manuscript Notebook of Sarah Creighton Wilkins
Institution: Nova Scotia Archives
| Source Origin: MacDonald Family Fonds
| Reference: MG 1 No. 1 / Microfilm Reel 10,618
A recipe for a medicinal syrup with opium. There are a number of extant recipes for Black Drop, which may have been first devised in County Durham in the 1750s.
Black drop
Take ½ a pound of Opium sliced
3 pints of good Verjuice, 1 once & ½
of Nutmeg, ½ an once of Saffron
Boil them to a proper thickness
then add a ¼ of a pound of Sugar
2 spoonful of Yeast set the whole
in a warm place near the fire
for 6 or 8 weeks. Then place it
{...} the open air until it becomes a Syrup
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