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Raspberry Frappe
Put three tablespoonfuls of raspberry syrup in a parfait glass half full of cracked ice. Add three tablespoonfuls of thick cream, and fill up the glass with soda water or Seltzer.
A three-ingredient soda-fountain drink that depends entirely on the quality of the syrup and the coldness of everything else. Assembly order matters more than measurement here.
- Add the soda last and slowlyPour the seltzer down the inside of the glass over a spoon so it does not foam over the cream and syrup. Stir once, briefly, with a long spoon — over-stirring flattens the carbonation and the drink loses its point.
- Raspberry syrupThe period product is a thick fruit-and-sugar syrup, generally much heavier in sugar than a modern thin cordial, and closer in body to a bar syrup. If you use a commercial squash or diluting cordial, three tablespoons will taste watery and thin; reduce the seltzer or use a heavier syrup.
- "Thick cream"Read this as a rich, unwhipped cream: modern heavy or whipping cream is the nearest equivalent. Half-and-half or light cream will not give the white marbling through the soda that the drink depends on.
- Parfait glassA tall, narrow footed glass; period examples vary, but assume something in the region of 6 to 8 ounces. With three tablespoons of syrup, three of cream and a glass half full of ice, only a small amount of soda will fit — top up to the rim and no further.
- Cracked, not cubedCracked ice — cubes wrapped in a towel and struck with a rolling pin, or the coarse crush setting on a machine — chills fast and gives the frappé its slushy body. Fine snow ice will melt into the cream and dilute it before you finish.
- CurdlingRaspberry syrup is acidic and cream can flocculate against it if the cream is not very cold or is near its date. Chill both hard, and drink it immediately rather than letting it stand.
- YieldOne glass. Scale by making each drink individually; batching the cream and syrup ahead and adding soda later gives a duller result.
On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon belongs to the wave of temperance drink books that appeared as national Prohibition approached, and its title is a joke on the slang phrase for going without liquor. Books like it were written to prove that a hostess could set out something interesting that was not alcoholic, and they leaned heavily on the vocabulary and equipment of the American soda fountain parifait glasses, cracked ice, charged water, and the deep shelf of fruit syrups that pharmacists and confectioners kept on hand. Frappé is the past participle of the French frapper, and came to be used for something iced or chilled; by this period the word was often applied to drinks served over crushed or cracked ice, though it continued to denote a semi-frozen ice or dessert as well, the two senses coexisting. The combination of fruit syrup, cream and soda is essentially an unmolded ice cream soda, a form generally traced to the American drugstore fountains of the later nineteenth century, and raspberry was one of the standard fountain syrups alongside strawberry, vanilla and chocolate.