Thomas Hardy is too cheerful and optimistic a writer for my taste, but many thanks to the reader in Florida who tells me that frumenty has a useful role to play in The Mayor of Casterbridge. Laced with rum, it is prominent in the opening chapter:

”But there was more in that tent than met the cursory glance; and the man, with the instinct of a perverse character, scented it quickly. After a mincing attack on his bowl, he watched the hag’s proceedings from the corner of his eye, and saw the game she played. He winked to her, and passed up his basin in reply to her nod; when she took a bottle from under the table, slyly measured out a quantity of its contents, and tipped the same into the man’s furmity. The liquor poured in was rum. The man as slyly sent back money in payment.

He found the concoction, thus strongly laced, much more to his satisfaction than it had been in its natural state. His wife had observed the proceeding with much uneasiness; but he persuaded her to have hers laced also, and she agreed to a milder allowance after some misgiving.”

She was right to be worried. While drunk, the protagonist sells her and their daughter to a passing sailor.