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Apollinaris Lemonade
Juice of 1 lemon, 1 spoonful powdered sugar, ¼ glass cracked ice. Shake, strain and fill with Apollinaris water, add two cherries and slice of lemon.
A soda-fountain lemonade rather than a pitcher drink: built in a shaker, strained, and lengthened with sparkling mineral water. The instructions assume fountain equipment and fountain shorthand.
- What a "glass" means hereFountain recipes commonly measure by the serving glass, which in this period was often somewhere around 8 to 10 oz. A quarter glass of cracked ice is therefore something like a quarter cup, used for chilling in the shaker rather than for serving.
- The "spoonful" of sugarAn unspecified spoonful, probably on the order of a teaspoon or so. "Powdered" sugar in this period meant finely ground sugar, closer to today's superfine or caster sugar than to modern confectioners' sugar; the fine grind dissolves faster in a cold shake than coarse granulated, so use superfine or a splash of simple syrup.
- Apollinaris waterA naturally carbonated mineral water from the Ahr valley in Germany, marketed in the period as the "Queen of Table Waters" and still sold. Any strongly carbonated, mineral-rich sparkling water stands in; the point is the salty-alkaline edge, which is why no plain soda is called for.
- Strain, then fillThe shake is only to chill and dissolve. Strain into the serving glass and add the Apollinaris last, poured gently, so the carbonation is not lost.
- Juice of one lemonLemon size varies, so the acidity does too; one lemon yields roughly 2 to 3 tablespoons of juice, and a very large one may need holding back so the drink is not harshly sour under the mineral water.
- The cherriesMost likely the sweet preserved cherries the fountain trade kept on the counter, of the maraschino type. Two is the specified garnish and adds a little sweetness as they sit.
- YieldOne drink.
Apollinaris water was bottled commercially from a spring at Bad Neuenahr in the Ahr valley from the mid-nineteenth century and became one of the most widely advertised table waters in Britain and America, which is why a recipe like this treats it as a stock ingredient rather than an import to explain. Mineral waters reached soda fountains through the druggist's counter, where carbonated and medicinal waters were sold on the strength of their supposed digestive benefits, and drinks like this one sat at the join between the two trades: a lemonade dressed up in a branded, faintly saline water that customers had been taught to think of as good for them. Recipes of this type are common in soda and dispensing books published around the turn of the century.