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Griscom Cooler
Mix two tablespoonfuls of grape juice, one tablespoonful of raspberry syrup, and one tablespoonful of orange syrup, with the juice of half an orange. Pour into a glass half full of cracked ice and fill up with soda water. Stir with a spoon and put a sprig of mint in the glass.
A single-glass soda-fountain drink from the era when the fountain was replacing the bar. Everything hinges on the two fruit syrups, which were pantry staples in 1919 and are the only part you now have to plan ahead for.
- Raspberry and orange syrupThese are fountain-type syrups rather than preserves or cordials: fruit juice cooked with a large proportion of sugar (period formulas vary widely, from about equal weight upward) until it pours like thin honey. Bottled Italian-style syrups work, though they tend to run sweeter and more perfumed than a homemade syrup.
- Grape juiceCommercial grape juice of the period was typically unsweetened Concord, pressed and pasteurised in the Welch's manner. Use a dark, unsweetened Concord juice rather than a pale white-grape blend, which will leave the drink thin in both colour and flavour.
- ProportionsTwo tablespoons grape juice, one each of the two syrups, plus the juice of half an orange comes to something over a third of a cup of flavouring base. In a tall 12 oz glass that is a light, spritzy drink; in an 8 oz glass it is closer to a fruit soda.
- Cracked iceCracked, not cubed. Ice broken small chills fast and dilutes as it goes, which is part of the intended effect. Wrap cubes in a towel and hit them with a rolling pin, or use the pulse setting on a blender briefly.
- Soda waterPlain unflavoured carbonated water, unsweetened. Modern club soda carries added mineral salts, which is fine here; seltzer is the closer match to a 1919 siphon.
- StirringOne or two gentle turns from the bottom of the glass upward is enough. Vigorous stirring, or stirring before the soda goes in, flattens the carbonation the drink depends on.
- The mintSlap the sprig once between your palms before setting it in the glass to release the oils. A sprig laid in untouched is decoration only.
- YieldOne glass, as written. Scale the base by the number of drinks and hold it in a pitcher, but add soda and ice glass by glass.
On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon collects hundreds of non-alcoholic drinks and appeared as national Prohibition was arriving, when American soda fountains and hotel dispensaries needed a repertoire that could stand in for the bar. Coolers like this one look much like the familiar fountain formula: a small measure of fruit syrups and juice, cracked ice, a long pour of soda, a green garnish. Naming such drinks after families, hotels or towns seems to have been common enough at the time, and the recipe itself does not say who the Griscom behind this one was. What it does document is the rise of commercial grape juice, which had grown from a communion-wine substitute pressed in the 1860s into a mainstream pantry item by the First World War, and which temperance writers embraced precisely because it tasted of the vineyard without fermenting.