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Pasadena Phosphate
Shake well together four tablespoonfuls of orange syrup, two tablespoonfuls of grape juice, and three dashes of acid phosphate. Put a little cracked ice into a glass, add the fruit syrup, and fill up with soda water.
A soda-fountain formula, built in the glass rather than mixed in a shaker despite the wording. It makes one drink and takes about a minute once you have the syrups.
- Acid phosphateA dilute 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 lemon juice. It is still manufactured for the cocktail and soda trade; a dash is usually reckoned at somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 teaspoon, so three dashes is on the order of half a teaspoon. Lemon juice is not a substitute — it will taste of lemon, which is precisely what phosphate avoids.
- Orange syrupFountain orange syrup was a heavy sugar syrup flavoured with orange oil and juice, far sweeter and more concentrated than modern orange juice. Four tablespoonfuls of it is a quarter cup; using juice instead will give you a thin, sour drink.
- Grape juiceIn 1919 this meant unfermented Concord juice of the Welch's type, dark and quite sweet. Any Concord grape juice works; wine-grape juice is too mild to register against the orange.
- "Shake well together"The three liquids are combined first so the phosphate disperses evenly, then poured over ice and topped with soda. Do not shake the soda water — it goes flat and foams over.
- Soda waterThe original came from a pressurised fountain, generally reckoned to be more sharply carbonated than bottled club soda. Use the coldest, freshest seltzer you have and pour down the side of the glass.
- Glass and iceThe recipe says only 'a glass'; a fountain-sized tumbler suits it. Cracked ice — pieces the size of a thumbnail — chills faster than cubes.
- YieldOne glass. Scale the syrup mixture as far ahead as you like and keep it refrigerated; add ice and soda only to order.
On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon belongs to the flood of temperance drink books that appeared as national Prohibition arrived, offering recipes which could be made at home by people who needed a repertoire that did not involve spirits. The phosphate was the workhorse of that repertoire: acid phosphate had been promoted since the 1870s, most famously in Horsford's preparation, first as a nerve tonic and then simply as the sour note in fountain drinks, doing the job that citrus or bitters did on the other side of the bar. Naming drinks after towns and resorts is often said to have been ordinary fountain practice, and Pasadena — a wealthy, citrus-growing, conspicuously dry Southern California city — was an apt label for something built on orange syrup. The Concord grape juice is its own small piece of temperance history, having been developed in the 1860s as an unfermented communion wine.