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Independence Special
Mix one tablespoonful each of strawberry, pineapple, vanilla, and orange syrups. Put into a tall glass half filled with cracked ice, add three dashes of acid phosphate and enough soda water to fill glass. Stir briskly and serve with straws.
A soda-fountain formula from the years when the fountain was replacing the bar. Everything hinges on the acid phosphate — without it the drink is just sweet fruit soda.
- Acid phosphateA solution of phosphoric acid with calcium, magnesium and potassium salts, sold to druggists as a souring agent that adds tartness without the fruit flavour of citric acid. It is still made for the cocktail and soda trade; three dashes is on the order of a third of a teaspoon. Lemon juice is not a substitute — it brings its own flavour and no mineral bite.
- A dashAt the fountain this meant a squirt from a dasher-top bottle, about 1/8 teaspoon. The quantity is small but not optional; scale it to taste on the sour side rather than the sweet.
- Fountain syrupsCommercial fountain syrups ran heavy, near 2 parts sugar to 1 part water, and were far more concentrated than a modern flavouring syrup. Four tablespoons of a thin modern syrup will read as watery; use a proper 2:1 simple syrup infused or flavoured, or reduce the volume of soda water.
- Vanilla syrupNot vanilla extract diluted. Fountain vanilla syrup was sugar syrup carrying a modest amount of extract, and it functions here as a rounding agent between the three fruits rather than as a flavour of its own.
- Cracked iceIce chipped from a block, coarser than crushed and finer than cubes. Cracked ice chills fast and dilutes fast, which is why the drink is built and served immediately rather than left to stand.
- The glassA fountain tall glass held 10 to 12 ounces. Half filled with ice, four tablespoons of syrup and a dash bottle leaves roughly 6 to 7 ounces of soda water.
- Stirring"Briskly" means a few quick strokes with a long spoon, just enough to pull the syrup up off the bottom. Over-stirring flattens the carbonation, and the whole point of the acid phosphate is to sharpen a drink that still has bite.
- YieldOne glass.
On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon is a collection of non-alcoholic drink recipes appearing right at the arrival of national Prohibition, when druggists and confectioners were being told that the fountain was the respectable successor to the saloon — hence the title's joke about climbing aboard the water wagon. Acid phosphate, the ingredient that dates this drink most precisely, was a druggist's product before it was a beverage one: phosphate preparations were sold through the nineteenth century as tonics for nervous exhaustion, and the fountain, being attached to the pharmacy, simply carried the bottle over to the syrup rail. The recipe's construction is typical of the genre — a stack of house syrups over ice, soured and lengthened with soda.