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Madison Shake
Mix four tablespoonfuls of orgeat syrup and four tablespoonfuls of strawberry syrup with four tablespoonfuls of sweet cream. Add ice-cold milk to fill glass and put in a spoonful of pistachio ice cream.
A soda-fountain drink of the Prohibition era, built for a 12-ounce fountain glass. Everything hinges on the orgeat: it is an almond syrup, not a flavor you can leave out without the drink collapsing into pink milk.
- Orgeat syrupAn almond syrup, usually scented with orange-flower water, sold today for tiki cocktails. Any bottled orgeat works; almond extract stirred into simple syrup is a thinner substitute but will do.
- Sweet cream"Sweet" here means unsoured, as opposed to cream that had turned. Use light cream or half-and-half; heavy cream makes the glass cloying alongside eight tablespoons of syrup.
- Tablespoon measuresFour tablespoons is a quarter cup, or two fluid ounces. The three additions together come to six ounces of syrup and cream before any milk, which is why the glass needs to be a tall one.
- Glass sizeThe recipe says only to fill the glass, and six ounces of syrup and cream before any milk means it must be a tall one. In a smaller tumbler, scale the syrups back or the drink will be mostly sugar.
- Why it is called a shakeThe recipe gives no method, but the name implies agitation rather than stirring. Shake the syrups, cream and milk together in a cocktail shaker or blend briefly, then float the ice cream on top.
- Pistachio ice creamFountain pistachio ice cream was often almond-flavored and tinted green rather than made with real nuts, which would explain the pairing with orgeat. Modern pistachio ice cream, actually nutty, works as well or better.
- YieldOne drink. Serve at once with a long spoon; the ice cream is meant to be eaten as it melts down through the milk.
Helen Watkeys Moore's On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon collected several hundred non-alcoholic drinks and appeared as national Prohibition was arriving, when the soda fountain stood to inherit the saloon's trade. The recipes in it are largely fountain formulas of the sort a druggist or counterman already knew: syrups by the tablespoon, cream, cold milk, a scoop of ice cream, and a name borrowed from a place or a person. No origin is documented for the name Madison Shake, which fits the period vogue for christening drinks after streets, cities and colleges. What it does record is the American sweet tooth of the moment, and the fact that orgeat, now shelved with rum drinks, was also at home behind the temperance counter.