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Sunset Cooler
Mix four tablespoonfuls of strawberry syrup with four tablespoonfuls of sweet cream. Add two teaspoonfuls of crushed strawberries with a little of the juice. Put into a glass one third full of cracked ice and fill up with soda water. Decorate with whole strawberries.
Strawberry Shake No. 1 Add the juice of one half a lemon to four tablespoonfuls of strawberry syrup and two tablespoonfuls of orange syrup. Mix well, strain, and pour over cracked ice in a tall glass. Fill up with Seltzer.
Strawberry Shake No. 2 Mix two tablespoonfuls of strawberry syrup, two tablespoonfuls of orange syrup, three tablespoonfuls of grape juice with eight tablespoonfuls of sweet cream. Pour into a glass one fourth full of cracked ice. Stir well and decorate with fresh strawberries.
Three soda-fountain drinks built the way a 1919 dispenser would build them: syrup first, then cream or juice, then ice, then carbonation. Each set of quantities makes one tall glass, roughly 10 to 12 ounces.
- Tablespoons are fluid measuresAt the fountain a tablespoon is half a fluid ounce, so four tablespoonfuls of syrup is 2 oz. Eight tablespoonfuls of cream in Shake No. 2 is a half cup, which is why that one is the richest of the three.
- "Sweet cream" means unsoured, not sweetenedThe word distinguished unsoured cream from sour cream and buttermilk. Light cream or half-and-half is the closest match; heavy cream will make the drink cloying rather than refreshing.
- Fountain syrup is not modern coffee syrupStrawberry and orange syrup here mean a heavy sweetened fruit syrup, cooked down and strained. Bottled flavoring syrups sold for espresso drinks are thinner and more perfumed; a homemade fruit syrup, or a good sundae-grade syrup, is truer to the intent.
- Add the carbonation last and do not stir itThe syrup and cream go in first and the soda last, so the stream of soda does much of the mixing; stirring after the soda is in will knock the carbonation out. The recipes give no stirring instruction once the soda has been added.
- Soda water and Seltzer are the same thing hereBoth meant plain carbonated water from the fountain draft arm. Club soda works, though its added mineral salts read faintly saline against fruit syrup; plain seltzer is cleaner.
- Watch the acid against the creamShake No. 2 puts grape juice with a half cup of cream, and acid and cream can curdle if the mixture stands. Combine gently and serve at once.
- "Shake" did not yet mean ice creamNeither shake calls for shaking or for ice cream — both are syrup-and-cream drinks stirred at the fountain. The malted-milk-and-ice-cream sense of the word came to dominate later.
- Cracked ice, not cubesCracked ice was chipped from a block and chills faster because of the broken surface. A cube tray gives too little surface and dilutes slowly; crush cubes coarsely in a towel instead.
This comes from a wave of American drink books generally traced to the years around the arrival of national Prohibition, when "on the water wagon" was current slang for having given up liquor and the soda fountain was being promoted, in earnest and in commerce, as the bar's replacement. The recipes read like trade formulas because they are: a fountain dispenser worked from a rack of fruit syrups, a cream can, and a carbonated draft arm, and a cooler or a shake was largely a matter of the proportions of syrup, cream and soda, while a phosphate took its name from the acid phosphate solution added to it. Strawberry was a staple summer syrup, made in quantity while the fruit was cheap and drawn on all season, which is why fresh berries appear only as a garnish.