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Arctic Orange
Pour over a small glassful of shaved ice, two tablespoonfuls of orange syrup, and add three dashes of acid phosphate. Stir well and serve with a spoon.
A soda-fountain drink of the acid-phosphate era, and it depends almost entirely on two things being right: the ice and the phosphate.
- Acid phosphateA soda-fountain solution of phosphoric acid with calcium, magnesium and potassium salts, sold for decades as Horsford's. It gives a dry, tart, faintly mineral bite that lemon juice does not imitate. It is still made for the cocktail and soda trade; a dash is commonly reckoned at about 1/8 teaspoon, though period dash bottles varied, so three dashes is on the order of half a teaspoon.
- Orange syrupFountain orange syrup, not orange juice and not a liqueur. A 2:1 sugar syrup infused with orange zest and cut with a little juice is the closest home equivalent; commercial grenadine-style orange syrups will read much sweeter.
- "A small glassful"Fountain glasses of the period varied, commonly somewhere in the range of 6 to 10 ounces. Filled with shaved ice, such a glass holds considerably less liquid than its nominal capacity once the ice begins to melt.
- Shaved ice, not cubesThe whole texture of the drink is snow saturated with syrup, eaten as much as drunk. Cubes or even crushed ice leave the syrup pooled at the bottom. Shave it fine or pulse it in a blender and drain the meltwater before filling.
- The stirringStir hard enough to distribute the syrup through the ice but stop before it slumps. The phosphate should be added last so its sharpness is not buried under the syrup.
- ServingThe spoon is not decorative. This is served as a spoon drink, closer to a shaved ice than a soda, and should be eaten promptly before it collapses.
- YieldOne glass. Scaling up works, but build each glass separately rather than mixing a batch and pouring over ice.
Acid phosphate belongs to the golden age of the American soda fountain, when the druggist's counter sold flavour, fizz and a mild sense of tonic virtue in the same glass. The preparation is generally traced to Eben Horsford's work on phosphates at Harvard in the mid-nineteenth century; by the 1880s and 1890s it was a fountain staple, valued because its clean acidity balanced heavy fruit syrups without the cloudiness or fruit flavour of citrus juice. A drink called Arctic Orange, eaten with a spoon, was exactly the sort of thing meant to make the soda fountain look appealing rather than dutiful. Acid phosphate faded from general use after mid-century and has returned only recently, pushed back into circulation by bartenders reconstructing pre-Prohibition fountain drinks.