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Milk and Seltzer
To one half glass of rich milk add one half glass of Seltzer water.
Two ingredients and one line of instruction, which puts all the weight on proportions, temperature and timing. It is essentially a plain milk soda without syrup.
- What a glass means hereFountain and table glasses of the period were commonly somewhere in the 8 to 10 oz range, so half a glass is roughly 4 to 5 oz of each. Scale to whatever tumbler you have; the ratio of 1:1 is the whole recipe.
- "Rich milk"In this period the phrase generally meant unhomogenized whole milk, or whole milk with a little of the cream from the top stirred back in. Modern whole milk is the closest match; add a tablespoon of cream per glass if you want the original body.
- Seltzer, not club sodaSeltzer was usually plain carbonated water, often drawn from a charged syphon, though the name was applied loosely and some waters sold under it carried added salts. Club soda and many mineral waters contain sodium salts and bicarbonate that can read as slightly saline against milk. Use plain unflavoured seltzer.
- Chill both, hardCarbonation holds in cold liquid and escapes from warm. Milk straight from the refrigerator and seltzer equally cold will keep the fizz; either one at room temperature gives a brief foam and then a limp drink.
- Pour orderMilk first, then seltzer down the side of the glass in a slow stream. Reversing it produces a head of foam that overflows before the glass is half full.
- Serve at onceThere is no holding this. Within a couple of minutes the gas is gone and the drink separates slightly.
- Optional seasoningFlavoured milk sodas made at fountains were sweetened with syrup, and some modern drinkers add a pinch of salt or a drop of vanilla to keep the milk from tasting thin. The recipe as printed uses neither.
- YieldOne glass, one serving. Mix each glass individually rather than making a pitcher.
This comes from a book of non-alcoholic drinks from the Prohibition era, when hotel bars and drugstore fountains alike needed something to put in a tall glass. Milk and soda water was fountain fare well before that: the American soda fountain of the late nineteenth century sold plain and flavoured milk sodas alongside phosphates and egg drinks, and milk with soda water was sometimes suggested as an easier drink for those who found plain milk heavy. The appeal was partly physical and partly theatrical, since carbonated water lightens the texture of milk and gives a temperance drink the look and sound of something poured at a bar.