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The McAlpin
Mix one tablespoonful each of orange pulp, chopped pineapple and cherries cut into small pieces, with two tablespoonfuls of sweet cream and a spoonful of ice cream. Mix well and serve with a little soda water in a frappe glass. Decorate with a cherry.
A soda-fountain drink built in the glass, closer to a fruit shake than a float. Everything hinges on adding the soda water last and barely stirring, or the cream fizzes over the rim.
- Frappé glassFrappe glass -- a small footed, tapered glass used at soda fountains for semi-frozen drinks. A small stemmed dessert or coupe glass stands in fine; the recipe fills one serving only.
- Sweet creamPeriod usage for fresh, unsoured cream, as opposed to sour cream. Light cream or half-and-half gives the intended body; heavy cream makes it cloying against only a spoonful of ice cream.
- Orange pulpNot juice and not zest: the flesh of the segments, freed of membrane and pith, broken up with a spoon. A tablespoon is roughly one large segment.
- CherriesMost likely maraschino, the usual fountain cherry of the period, which would also add sugar. Fresh sweet cherries work but the drink will taste noticeably less sweet.
- PineappleFresh or canned in juice, chopped fine. Build the drink to order rather than letting the mixture stand.
- Soda waterPlain carbonated water, unsweetened and unflavored. Add an ounce or two, poured down the side of the glass, and fold once rather than stirring.
- SweeteningNo sugar or syrup is specified, on the assumption that the ice cream and the maraschino cherries supply it. Taste before serving and add a teaspoon of simple syrup if the fruit is tart.
The McAlpin was a name worth borrowing: the twenty-five-story hotel that opened on Herald Square in 1912 was billed at the time as the largest in the world. Recipes like this one suggest what the big hotel bars did when the liquor was taken away — national Prohibition took effect in January 1920, with wartime prohibition from July 1919 — they turned to the soda fountain, which had spent decades developing a repertoire of fruit, cream and carbonated water, and dressed its drinks up in stemmed glassware with a cherry on top. The frappé glass and the single spoonful of ice cream point to the soda fountain rather than the bar, and the format survived Prohibition in the ice-cream parlor long after the hotels went back to cocktails.