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Strawberry Nectar
Mix two tablespoonfuls of pineapple juice, two tablespoonfuls of strawberry juice, one teaspoonful each of vanilla, orange, and lemon extracts with one quart of plain syrup. Bottle for use. When serving put four tablespoonfuls in a tall glass half full of cracked ice and fill up with soda water.
A soda-fountain syrup, meant to be bottled and dispensed by the glass rather than drunk as made. The proportions only make sense once you know what "plain syrup" meant behind a counter.
- Plain syrupFountain "plain" or "simple" syrup was much heavier than the 1:1 syrup most bars keep now — commonly something on the order of two pounds of sugar to a pint of water, giving a thick, slow-pouring liquid, though formulas varied from house to house. Using a 1:1 syrup will give you a thin, weakly sweet drink that disappears under the soda.
- The juice is not the flavourTwo tablespoons each of pineapple and strawberry juice in a full quart is a tint and a hint, no more. The character of this nectar comes from the vanilla, orange and lemon extracts; if you substitute fresh fruit purée for the juice expect a different, cloudier drink.
- ExtractsPeriod extracts were alcohol-based and strong. A teaspoon each of three extracts per quart is deliberate and about right for a syrup diluted roughly four-to-one at the glass — do not scale the extracts up because the drink tastes mild in the bottle.
- Soda waterThis assumes charged water from a fountain or siphon, colder and more sharply carbonated than most bottled club soda. Chill the soda hard and pour down the side of the glass to keep the gas.
- Serving proportionsFour tablespoons is a quarter cup, or two fluid ounces, topped with soda in a tall glass half filled with cracked ice. A quart of syrup yields about sixteen drinks.
- Cracked iceCracked, not cubed and not crushed — irregular shards chill fast without watering the drink down to nothing before it is finished. Crush it if you like, but drink it quickly.
- Bottling and keeping"Bottle for use" implies a stoppered bottle kept cool and used up steadily rather than stored. Heavy sugar syrup plus fruit juice is not shelf-stable by modern standards; keep it refrigerated and use it within about two weeks, discarding it at any sign of fermentation or cloudiness.
The soda fountain was the respectable alternative to the saloon, and "riding on the water wagon" was a stock phrase for going without liquor. Fountain syrups were the working capital of that trade: a drugstore kept a rank of bottled syrups, each a concentrate to be pulled by the ounce and finished with charged water at the glass. Formulas of this kind leaned heavily on extracts because true fruit juice was seasonal, expensive and prone to spoiling in an unrefrigerated bottle. The recipe's structure — make a quart, bottle it, dispense four tablespoons at a time — is a counterman's economics, not a household one.