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Sarsaparilla Nectar
Pour slowly over one fourth glass of cream, enough sarsaparilla to fill the glass. Serve with whipped cream.
A soda-fountain drink of the sort a druggist would build to order: cold cream in the bottom of the glass, carbonated sarsaparilla poured down over it, whipped cream on top. Three ingredients, and the whole result depends on temperature and pouring speed.
- Pour slowly, and mean itCarbonated water hitting dairy fat foams violently and can overflow the glass in seconds. Tilt the glass, run the sarsaparilla down the inside wall, and stop twice to let the head settle.
- What "sarsaparilla" means hereNot the root and not a syrup to be diluted at the table, but the finished bottled or drawn soda as a fountain would serve it. A modern bottled sarsaparilla or a good old-style root beer stands in directly; if you have only syrup, mix it with soda water to the maker's ratio first.
- The glassPeriod fountain glasses varied in size, commonly somewhere in the 8 to 12 oz range, so "one fourth glass of cream" comes out around 2 to 3 oz. Judge it by eye against your own glass rather than measuring.
- Which creamPlain sweet cream, unwhipped, unsweetened. Heavy cream at around 36 percent fat gives the richest result; half-and-half makes a lighter, more drinkable version.
- Everything must be coldWarm cream is likelier to curdle against acidic soda, and a warm drink loses its carbonation faster. Chill the glass, the cream and the sarsaparilla thoroughly, and do not add ice, which the original does not call for and which only waters the drink.
- The whipped creamThe recipe specifies only whipped cream; whipped to soft peaks and spooned on works well. It sits as a float, so allow a little headroom when you fill.
- YieldOne glass, one drink. Serve with a long spoon as well as a straw, since the float has to be eaten.
Sarsaparilla takes its name from the Spanish zarzaparrilla, roughly "little bramble vine," for the Smilax roots imported from Central and South America and long sold as a blood purifier before they became a flavour. Commercial sarsaparilla of the era often owed as much to sassafras, birch and wintergreen as to Smilax, and it sat in the same family as root beer at the soda fountain. The recipe's brevity is telling. It assumes a reader with a soda tap and a bowl of cream at hand, and it is really a formula for a soda jerk rather than a cook.