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American Concentrated Syrups
Fine Rich, True Flavors.
Almond Cream Champagne Maple Birch Beer Coffee Root Beer Celery Chocolate Crême de Menthe Ginger Egg Phosphate Dublin Ginger Ale Vanilla Sarsaparilla Tonic Beer Ginger Cordial Mix 1 quart of any of above concentrated syrups with 3 to 5 quarts of simple syrup. Agitate thoroughly. These syrups are so strong that they will mix one part to six of syrup and make good flavors, but as we believe the best soda means the best trade, we recommend proportions of i to 3.
This is a dilution instruction rather than a formula from scratch: the concentrated syrup is the purchased product, and the fountain man's job was to cut it down to drawing strength. The numbers still work if you translate the vessels and understand what "simple syrup" meant behind a marble counter.
- Simple syrup, fountain strengthSoda-fountain simple syrup was heavy — roughly 2 parts granulated sugar to 1 part water by weight, near saturation, not the thin 1:1 bar syrup. Cutting a concentrate with modern 1:1 syrup will give a thinner, less sweet result that goes watery in carbonated water.
- The ratio is the whole recipeOne part concentrate to three parts simple syrup is the recommendation; one to five is described as acceptable and one to six as the technical limit. If you are working from a modern flavor concentrate, treat these as a starting point and taste, since bottling strengths vary enormously.
- Scaling downA quart is 32 fl oz, so the 1:3 proportion at household scale is 1 cup concentrate to 3 cups simple syrup, yielding a quart of finished fountain syrup. That is enough for roughly 20 to 30 glasses at the usual dose.
- Dosing at the glassThe book assumes the reader knows the next step. Standard fountain practice was about 1 to 1.5 fl oz of finished syrup per 8 oz glass, syrup first, then carbonated water drawn hard onto it to mix.
- "Agitate thoroughly"Poured together, a concentrate will not necessarily disperse evenly through heavy simple syrup on its own. Stir or shake until the mixture is uniform throughout, or the first glasses will be overpowering and the last insipid.
- Flavors that no longer mean what they didRoot beer and sarsaparilla were built on sassafras; safrole was barred from food use in the United States in 1960, and current sassafras extracts are safrole-free and taste noticeably lighter. Birch beer, celery and tonic beer syrups are far less common than they once were, though birch beer and celery soda survive as regional products, and "crême de menthe" here is a peppermint flavoring, not the liqueur.
- Egg phosphateThe egg phosphate on this list was mixed at the glass with acid phosphate — a phosphoric-acid solution that gives a dry, tangy edge — and a fresh egg. Acid phosphate is still sold to bartenders; the raw egg is likely part of why the drink fell out of fashion.
- Keeping itFinished syrup at fountain sugar concentration is fairly stable, but diluted syrup will eventually ferment or mold. Bottle it clean, refrigerate, and use within a few weeks.
By the 1890s the soda fountain was a fixture of the American drugstore, and the syrup room behind it was a small manufactory: druggists once made their own extracts from bark, root and fruit, but supply houses increasingly sold ready-made concentrates that only needed cutting with sugar syrup on the premises. That shift is exactly what this page is selling — a list of "true flavors" strong enough to stretch six ways, coupled with the pitch that the shrewd operator will stretch them only three, because "the best soda means the best trade." The flavor list itself dates the book: birch beer, celery tonic, tonic beer and ginger cordial were mainstream fountain drinks, and several of them, sarsaparilla and root beer especially, were sold with at least a nod toward medicinal virtue, a legacy of the fountain's origins at the pharmacy counter rather than the lunch counter.