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Pineapple Cream
Mix well together four tablespoonfuls of pineapple syrup with two tablespoonfuls of cream. Pour into a glass, nearly fill with soda water, and add a spoonful of pineapple or orange sherbet.
A soda-fountain formula, written for someone standing at a marble counter with a syrup pump and a charged-water tap. It scales to one glass and takes under a minute.
- Pineapple syrupNot juice. Fountain syrup was a heavy sugar syrup (roughly two parts sugar to one of liquid) flavored with pineapple, so four tablespoons carried all the sweetness the drink needed. Canned pineapple juice will taste thin and sour here; use a bottled soda syrup or boil crushed pineapple with an equal weight of sugar, strain, and chill.
- Soda waterPlain carbonated water, unsweetened and unflavored, as cold as you can get it. Club soda works; seltzer from a siphon is closer to the original, which arrived under real pressure and did the mixing on its own.
- The order mattersSyrup and cream are mixed together first and only then poured into the glass, before any water goes in. Pineapple syrup is acidic, and cream added to an already-fizzing glass is more likely to break into flecks than to blend.
- CreamThe recipe means ordinary sweet cream, not whipping cream. Light cream is the closest match; heavy cream makes the drink cloying and coats the glass.
- "Sherbet" in 1919"Sherbet" at the fountain -- In this period the word meant a fruit ice lightened with milk, egg white or gelatin, icier than modern supermarket sherbet and much lighter than ice cream. A fruit sorbet gives a closer texture than commercial sherbet does.
- Glass sizeAssume a 10 to 12 ounce soda glass. "Nearly fill" means leaving an inch of headroom, because the scoop of sherbet will raise a head of foam the moment it lands.
- Yield and timingOne drink. Serve it the instant it is built, with a long spoon and a straw; the foam collapses and the cream begins to separate within a few minutes.
This comes from the run of American drink books published as national Prohibition arrived, when the soda fountain took over the social role of the bar and needed a repertoire large enough to fill a menu. The fountain "cream" was a standing category alongside the plain soda, the phosphate and the egg drink: syrup, a little sweet cream, charged water, and often a float of ice or sherbet on top. Pineapple was cheap and reliable once canned Hawaiian fruit reached the mainland in quantity. The recipes are the drier country's consolation.