The Detroit
Bruise a small sprig of mint in a glass. Add four tablespoonfuls of chocolate syrup, and a spoonful of ice cream. Fill up the glass with soda water.
A soda-fountain drink of the kind measured in pumps and dippers rather than cups. The proportions assume fountain equipment, so a little adjustment gets you the drink as intended.
- Bruise, don't shredPress the mint against the bottom of the glass with a spoon just until it smells strongly of mint. Muddling it to a pulp releases bitterness from the stems and leaves green flecks through the whole drink.
- Chocolate syrup, not chocolate sauceFountain syrup was thin, sweet and only mildly chocolate — closer to the pourable syrup sold for milk than to a thick dessert sauce. Four tablespoons of a modern fudge sauce will be cloying; use a thin syrup, or start with three tablespoons and taste.
- A spoonful of ice creamThe original says only 'a spoonful', and does not specify a flavour. Keep it to a small spoonful: it is there for body and foam rather than as a float, so keep it modest or the glass overflows when the soda hits it.
- Soda waterFountain soda was drawn hard and cold under pressure. Bottled seltzer or club soda works if it is thoroughly chilled and freshly opened; warm or flat water gives a dull, sweet drink with no lift.
- The glassUse a tall glass. Syrup and ice cream at the bottom, then fill from a height so the stream mixes the syrup as it goes — the original gives no stirring instruction.
- Strain if you likeThe mint is left loose in the glass in the original. Straining the bruised leaves out after muddling, or muddling in a separate glass and pouring off, gives the same aroma without leaves in the teeth.
- YieldOne drink, and it does not hold — serve it the moment it is built.
On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon belongs to the burst of non-alcoholic drink books that appeared around the arrival of national Prohibition, when soda fountains took over a good deal of the bar's business and needed a repertoire to match. Naming drinks after cities is often said to have been common at the fountain: the same handful of syrups, ice cream and carbonated water could be recombined endlessly, and a name gave each combination a place on the menu board. Mint with chocolate is an old pairing in confectionery, and here it does the work a bitters or a liqueur would have done in a mixed drink help from a sharp aromatic note to keep a very sweet base from tasting flat.