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The Empire
Put two tablespoonfuls of lime juice, one egg, a spoonful of ice cream, and about eight drops of acid phosphate into a shaker. Shake well, pour into a tall glass and fill up with soda water, using the syphon.
A soda-fountain egg drink of the American temperance era. The technique is straightforward; the raw egg is the problem.
- Raw egg, never heatedThe whole egg goes into the shaker and is served immediately over ice-cold soda water. Nothing in the drink reaches a temperature that would inactivate Salmonella, and the acid phosphate and lime juice are nowhere near strong enough to do it either. The risk was accepted then and is not now.
- Ice cream compounds itCommercial ice cream is pasteurised, but the finished drink is an uncooked egg-and-dairy mixture served at fountain temperature. If you want an egg phosphate today, use a current recipe built on pasteurised shell eggs or pasteurised liquid egg.
- Acid phosphateNot a household chemical but a fountain staple: a dilute blend of phosphoric acid with calcium, magnesium and potassium salts, sold to give a dry, tart bite without the fruitiness of citric acid. It disappeared with the fountains and has been revived by a few small producers for cocktail work. Eight drops is a very light hand.
- "A spoonful of ice cream"Fountain shorthand for a small scoop dipped from the cabinet; the recipe does not specify a size or a flavour.
- The syphonA charged seltzer bottle, which delivers soda water under pressure in a hard stream. The hard charge helps raise the head on the glass; poured soda from a bottle gives a flatter drink.
- YieldOne tall glass, filled up with soda; the finished volume depends on the glass.
The soda fountain was offered as a respectable substitute for the bar. The fountain had its own grammar of drinks, and the egg phosphate was one of its standards: an egg, a dash of acid phosphate for tartness, flavouring, and a hard charge of seltzer. Egg drinks were widely marketed as nourishing, a holdover from the era when flip, egg nogg and egg lemonade were served to invalids as much as to drinkers, and a fountain man could sell one as something closer to a light meal than a treat. Formulas of this kind often carried house names, "The Empire" among them, presenting a small variation on a familiar mix as a specialty of the establishment.