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Almond Rickey
Almond Syrup, 2 pints; Pineapple Syrup, 1 pint; Orange Syrup, 1 pint; Vanilla Syrup, 1 pint. Squeeze half a lime into soda glass, add 1 ounce above syrup and shaved ice, shake; draw soda to fill glass, and serve with a straw.
This is a fountain formula in two parts: first you blend a bulk syrup (5 pints total), then you use one ounce of it per drink. Scaled down for a home bar, the blend is 8 parts almond syrup to 4 parts each pineapple, orange and vanilla.
- Scaling the blendTwo pints almond, one pint each pineapple, orange and vanilla yields 80 ounces of finished syrup, or about 80 drinks. A workable home batch is 4 oz almond and 2 oz each of the others, which gives ten servings.
- Almond syrup means orgeatThe fountain's almond syrup corresponds broadly to what bar shelves now label orgeat: almond, sugar and often a little orange flower water, though period fountain syrups were frequently built on almond extract rather than an emulsion of nuts. Modern orgeats are likely to be more almond-forward, so start at the low end of the ounce.
- The syrups were house-madeThe syrups -- A fountain of this period might make its own pineapple, orange and vanilla syrups from fruit juice or extract and simple syrup, though commercial fountain syrups were also on sale. Modern commercial equivalents are sweeter and often citric-acid sharp; taste the blend before bottling and cut with plain simple syrup if it is aggressive.
- What a rickey isA rickey is defined by lime and carbonated water, not by spirit. This one is alcohol-free, which is the whole point of a soda-fountain rickey: the fountain sold the shape of a bar drink without the bar.
- Half a limeThe limes generally available then were the small West Indian type rather than today's Persian lime. Half a modern lime gives roughly 1/2 oz of juice, which is in the right range against one ounce of syrup; a small Key lime, halved, is closer to the original.
- Shaved ice and the shakeShaved ice dilutes fast and chills on contact. The recipe has you shake syrup, juice and ice before charging: use crushed ice, shake briefly, and do not shake after the soda goes in.
- Drawing the sodaFountain soda was generally carbonated at higher pressure than bottled club soda. Use the coldest, most freshly opened seltzer you have and pour down the side of the glass; the recipe specifies only a 'soda glass', and a 10 to 12 oz one suits a single ounce of syrup better than a tall one.
- YieldOne glass per ounce of blended syrup. Keep the bulk syrup refrigerated and use it while fresh; almond emulsions separate, so shake the bottle before pouring.
Rickeys are generally traced to a bar drink of the 1880s in Washington, D.C., where lime, ice and carbonated water were served over whiskey and later gin; the soda fountain took the format and dropped the spirit, keeping the lime and the fizz that gave the drink its dry, non-cloying character. By the time books like this one were compiled, the fountain was a commercial rival to the saloon, and its dispensers worked from exactly this sort of formula: a bulk syrup mixed in advance, then a measured ounce per glass, so that a busy clerk could turn out a consistent drink quickly. Almond syrup, related to the older orgeats of Europe, was one of the fountain's staple flavors because it rounded and softened the fruit syrups it was blended with, and it survives in that role in the bar today.