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American Lemonade
Put into a large tumbler the juice of one lemon, a table-spoonful of icing sugar, a wineglass of water, and fill up to three parts with shaved or crushed ice. Shake well, fill up with soda water, dash with raspberry or strawberry syrup, and place a slice of lemon and a slice of orange on top. Serve with a straw. A delicious summer drink. Probable cost, 8d.
A single-glass soda-fountain drink, and one of the easier Victorian recipes to reproduce exactly. Only the measures and the shaking need translation.
- WineglassIn British recipe books of this period a wineglass is reckoned at about 2 fl oz (60 ml), sometimes a little more. Treat it as a generous quarter-cup of plain water; it is only there to dissolve the sugar.
- Icing sugarConfectioners' or powdered sugar, chosen because it dissolves instantly in cold liquid rather than gritting at the bottom of the glass. A tablespoon is roughly 8 g here, so the drink is lightly sweetened; taste before adding the fruit syrup, which brings its own sugar.
- ShakingThe recipe does not say what the tumbler is shaken in; period bar practice would suggest a second tumbler or metal cup inverted over the top, the two-piece bar shaker, and a modern cocktail shaker does the same job. The recipe's own order is clear: shake first, soda water afterwards.
- The iceBlock ice, imported or manufactured, broken down by hand at the bar. Finely shaved or crushed ice melts fast either way, so build the drink at the last moment and serve it immediately.
- Soda waterPlain carbonated water, unsweetened and unflavoured. Club soda works; tonic does not, and neither does lemonade in the British sense, which would double the sugar.
- Raspberry or strawberry syrupA sweet fruit syrup of the soda-fountain kind. Any decent fruit syrup, or a spoonful of raspberry preserve pressed through a sieve, gives the same red streak through the glass.
- YieldOne large tumbler, around 10-12 fl oz. Scale by the glass rather than mixing a jug, since the drink depends on the soda water going in last.
The name marks the drink as an import: to a British reader, "American" lemonade meant lemonade served the way the United States soda fountain served it, with crushed ice, carbonated water and a dash of coloured fruit syrup, rather than the still, sweetened lemon-and-water drunk at home. It sits among the summer beverages at a moment when both cheap ice and bottled soda water had become widely available in British towns, and when the chemist's shop and the temperance bar were selling iced fruit drinks over a counter. The straw belongs to the same borrowing. The "probable cost" of 8d is the book's usual practice.