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Harlequin Punch
Mix one half pint of strawberry syrup, one half pint of orange syrup, one half pint of pineapple syrup, and four tablespoonfuls of lemon juice. To serve, put four tablespoonfuls in glass one third full of cracked ice, and fill up with soda water. Decorate with fresh strawberries and slices of orange and pineapple.
A soda-fountain base syrup rather than a drink in itself: you mix the three fruit syrups once, then build each glass to order. The whole thing hinges on the syrups being true fountain syrups — heavy, roughly two parts sugar to one part fruit — because they are diluted about six-fold in the glass.
- Half a pintOne cup, or 8 fl oz. The finished base is therefore 3 cups of syrup plus a quarter cup of lemon juice.
- YieldAt 4 tablespoonfuls (2 fl oz) per glass, the batch makes about 13 drinks, each finishing at roughly 8-10 oz once ice and soda are added.
- What "syrup" meantFountain fruit syrup, not the thin cordials or sugar-free flavour shots sold now. If you substitute a modern cordial meant for dilution, the drink will taste flat and weak; look for a dense fruit syrup, or cook your own at 2 parts sugar to 1 part strained fruit purée or juice.
- Pineapple syrupThe hardest of the three to buy in an honest version. Simmering canned crushed pineapple with an equal weight of sugar and straining gives a closer match than commercial pineapple flavouring, which reads as candy.
- Lemon juiceFresh, and added to the base rather than the glass — it is the only acid holding three sweet syrups together. Bottled juice mutes the whole thing.
- Cracked iceIce broken to irregular pieces roughly the size of a hazelnut, not cubes and not crushed to snow. It chills fast without watering the drink down before it is finished.
- Soda waterIn 1919 this came from fountain apparatus or a charged siphon, and was generally carbonated harder than most bottled soda today. Use the freshest, hardest-sparkling soda you have, pour down the side of the glass, and stir once at most.
- The garnish is the pointThe name most likely refers to the assortment of bright colours, so add the fruit last and do not stir it in. Cut the orange in half-wheels and the pineapple in thin wedges so they sit visibly against the ice.
On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon belongs to the brief publishing rush that accompanied national Prohibition: with the saloon closing, the drugstore soda fountain became the American public's bar, and books like this one supplied several hundred alcohol-free formulas, addressed chiefly to the home. Harlequin Punch is built like a fountain drink — a batched syrup base drawn off two ounces at a time and lengthened with charged water. The name follows a common habit of naming drinks for their appearance rather than their ingredients: Harlequin, the motley-clad figure of the commedia dell'arte, stood generally for anything bright and many-coloured, and the word turns up elsewhere attached to multi-coloured ices, jellies and cakes. The recipe also suggests how far bottled and canned fruit had reshaped the American kitchen by 1919 — strawberry, orange and pineapple syrups were shelf goods, available out of season, which is what made a three-fruit punch a matter of measuring rather than growing.