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Simplicity Cup
Into a glass nearly full of shaved ice, put one teaspoonful of powdered sugar, and fill up the glass with ginger ale. Stir well until the sugar is dissolved, and decorate with a slice of pineapple.
A single-glass drink of the sort bartenders were rebuilding their repertoire around after the saloon closed. Two details do all the work: the ice and the stirring.
- Stir gently, or not muchStirring -- The recipe says to stir well until the sugar dissolves, which will cost some carbonation. If you want to keep more fizz, dissolve the sugar in a teaspoon of water first and stir only briefly.
- Powdered sugarPeriod "powdered sugar" means finely milled granulated sugar, not the modern confectioners' sugar cut with cornstarch. Superfine or caster sugar is the closer match; confectioners' will work but leaves a faint cloudiness.
- Shaved iceShaved or cracked ice, not cubes. It chills fast and dilutes fast, which is the point in a drink meant to be finished quickly. A food processor pulsed with cubes, or ice wrapped in a towel and struck with a rolling pin, gets you there.
- Glass sizeAssume a tumbler of roughly 8 to 10 oz. With the glass nearly full of shaved ice the actual ginger ale is closer to 5 or 6 oz, so one teaspoon of sugar reads as a light sweetening rather than a syrup.
- Modern ginger ale is already sweetCommercial ginger ale now runs around 8 to 10 percent sugar by weight. Taste before adding the sugar; with a dry or spicy ginger ale the teaspoon is welcome, with a mainstream brand it may be redundant.
- The pineappleA slice cut from a fresh pineapple, or a canned ring drained and halved, notched to sit on the rim. Canned pineapple was widely available and inexpensive by the early twentieth century.
- YieldOne glass, built in the glass. It does not scale into a punch bowl without going flat.
The name "cup" belongs to the older family of wine and cider cups, iced and fruit-garnished drinks served from a jug; here it is applied to a single glass built without syrups or infusions. Ginger ale was a convenient base for such drinks: cheap, bottled, widely distributed, and assertive enough to carry sugar and fruit without tasting like plain soda water. Canned pineapple was by this period a widely available grocery item.