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The Audubon
Mix thoroughly four tablespoonfuls of maple syrup, four tablespoonfuls of ice cream, and two tablespoonfuls of sweet cream. Fill up the glass with cold milk and decorate with a sprig of mint.
A soda-fountain milk drink of the sort that filled American glassware during the dry years. It needs almost nothing translated, but a few of the terms have drifted.
- Sweet creamAt the time this meant fresh cream as opposed to soured or cultured cream, not a sweetened product. Use heavy or whipping cream; the sugar in the drink comes entirely from the syrup and ice cream.
- Ice creamThe recipe does not specify a flavour; plain vanilla is the safest reading. Use it soft enough to blend but not melted, or you lose the body that distinguishes this from sweetened milk.
- Maple syrupReal syrup rather than a maple-flavoured corn-syrup table blend. A darker grade (formerly Grade B, now labeled dark or very dark) gives the maple flavor enough weight to carry through the milk.
- The glassThe recipe gives no glass size; fill whatever tumbler you use with cold milk after the other ingredients are in. Makes one drink.
- Mixing orderBeat the syrup, ice cream and cream together first until smooth, then add the milk, as the recipe directs. Adding the milk early makes the syrup harder to work off the bottom of the glass.
- TemperatureEverything should be cold from the refrigerator before it goes in the glass. There is no ice in the drink, so the chill has to come from the ingredients.
- The mintBruise the sprig lightly between your fingers before setting it in the glass, or it contributes nothing but color.
On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon belongs to the flood of non-alcoholic drink books published as American Prohibition approached, when hostesses and hotel keepers alike needed a repertoire that could stand in for cocktails. Its recipes borrow the working vocabulary of the commercial soda fountain — sweet cream, ice cream measured in spoonfuls — and adapt it to a home glass. Named drinks like this one were the fountain trade's stock in trade; the book itself does not explain its title, and fountain names were attached and reattached freely. What the recipe records more reliably is the American habit of treating maple syrup as a flavoring rather than a breakfast condiment.