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Washington Shake
Put in a shaker one tablespoonful each of strawberry, pineapple, and vanilla syrups. Add a little ice and sufficient milk to fill glass, and blend thoroughly by pouring from shaker to glass several times. Add soda water and serve with straws.
A soda-fountain formula rather than a kitchen one: three sweetened syrups, cold milk, and a splash of carbonation, aerated by throwing it between two vessels. The whole thing takes under a minute and depends entirely on everything being very cold.
- The hinge: pour, don't shakeThe recipe blends by pouring back and forth between the shaker tin and the glass rather than shaking it closed, which incorporates air more gently. The instruction is simply 'several times'.
- Fountain syrupsThese are simple syrups flavoured with fruit essence or crushed fruit, generally heavier on sugar than modern coffee-shop flavouring syrups, though strength varied from house to house. Three tablespoons total in one glass is sweet by modern standards; two may suit better.
- Vanilla syrup, not extractThe vanilla here is a sweetened syrup. Substituting vanilla extract gives you alcohol-forward bitterness and none of the body the sugar contributes.
- "Sufficient milk to fill glass"Fountain glasses of the period varied in size, so the milk quantity is whatever fills your glass once ice and syrup are in, leaving headroom for the soda. Unstandardised whole milk is what the recipe would have used.
- A little iceLikely shaved or cracked ice, added to chill during the pouring rather than to fill the glass. Chilling the milk in advance helps.
- Soda water lastCharged water goes in after blending, so the carbonation is not lost during the pouring.
- YieldOne tall glass.
This comes from a book of non-alcoholic drinks from the era when the American temperance movement was gaining ground, and its recipes lean heavily on the professional soda fountain, which had become a public place to stand at a counter and be handed something cold in a glass. Drinks named for cities, states and presidents were common on fountain lists, and a "Washington" need carry no more meaning than a house name. The milk shake here is worth noting for what it lacks: no ice cream, which becomes standard in fountain milk shakes later, and no mechanical mixer, only the hand-thrown blend.