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Orange Cream
Fill a glass one third full of cracked ice and pour over two tablespoonfuls of orange syrup, two tablespoonfuls of maple syrup, and two tablespoonfuls of plain cream. Mix well, and fill up with Apollinaris or Seltzer. A grating of nutmeg may be added.
A soda-fountain drink built in the glass, and it works today with almost no adjustment. The only real difficulty is keeping acidic orange syrup from curdling the cream.
- Order of operationsCombine the orange syrup, maple syrup and cream over the ice and stir them thoroughly before any water goes in, as the recipe directs. Acid in the orange syrup can curdle cream if it meets it undiluted, and carbonation added first makes stirring difficult without losing the fizz.
- Glass sizeFountain glasses of the period ran roughly 8 to 12 oz. Six tablespoonfuls of syrup and cream suits a glass of about that size; in a 16 oz tumbler it will taste thin.
- Orange syrupThis means a fountain syrup, not juice: sugar and water simmered to a syrup with orange juice and grated zest, the proportions varying. Bottled orange soda syrup or a citrus cordial substitutes; straight orange juice will not sweeten it enough.
- Maple syrupUse real maple, grade A dark for flavor that can stand up to the orange. Table "pancake syrup" is corn syrup with flavoring and will read as generic sweetness.
- "Plain cream"Unwhipped cream, in practice closer to modern light cream or half-and-half than to heavy cream, which at about 36 percent fat makes the drink heavy and mutes the carbonation.
- ApollinarisA naturally carbonated German mineral water, widely sold in the United States at the time and treated as interchangeable with seltzer. Any strongly carbonated sparkling water works; add it in a thin stream down the side of the glass to keep the head.
- Cracked iceCracked, not cubed — small irregular pieces chill fast and give the stirring something to work against. A few cubes in a towel and a rolling pin does it.
- YieldOne drink. Multiply as needed, but build each glass individually; a pitcher goes flat and the cream separates.
This belongs to the American soda fountain at its height, when a druggist's counter carried dozens of bottled syrups and a cream drink like this one was ordinary afternoon refreshment. Apollinaris water, named for the spring at Bad Neuenahr in the Rhineland, was the prestige sparkling water of the era and appears constantly in period drink books; its inclusion beside plain seltzer here is a small piece of turn-of-the-century brand awareness. Maple syrup appears here as a soda flavoring alongside the vanilla, chocolate and fruit that dominated the idiom.