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Brownies
One ounce coca-cola in a mineral glass, add dash of ginger extract, solid soda, stir and serve.
A fountain formula rather than a home recipe: everything hinges on knowing that "coca-cola" here means the bottler's syrup, not the finished drink.
- One ounce of syrupFountain Coca-Cola was bought as a concentrated syrup and diluted at the tap, commonly cited as something like one ounce of syrup to five or six of carbonated water. Coca-Cola syrup has at times been sold in bottles through pharmacies and restaurant suppliers, though it is not easy to find; bottled Coke will not stand in, since it is already diluted.
- Mineral glassA fountain glass used for carbonated drinks rather than sundaes; sizes varied. A highball glass of roughly 8 to 10 oz does the job.
- "Solid soda"Fountain taps had two streams: a fine, aerated spray for building foam and a coarse or "solid" stream that delivered carbonated water in a heavy column. Solid soda means fill the glass from the coarse stream, so you get a firm fizz rather than a head of froth. Pouring seltzer straight down the middle of the glass gets you close.
- Ginger extractA concentrated alcoholic tincture of ginger root, once a standard fountain flavoring bottle. A dash is a few drops from a shaker top, not a teaspoon. Modern ginger extracts vary a good deal in strength, so start with two or three drops and taste; a squeeze of fresh ginger juice is a reasonable substitute.
- Stir at onceCarbonated water loses its gas quickly under agitation. One or two turns with a long spoon to lift the syrup off the bottom is all that is wanted, then serve immediately.
- YieldOne glass. Scaling up defeats the point, since the drink is built in the glass and served at once.
Soda fountains treated Coca-Cola as one flavoring syrup among dozens, to be spiked, blended and renamed at the dispenser's discretion, and books like this one collected the results as trade formulas. A single ounce of syrup with a dash of ginger and a hard shot of carbonated water is a typical example: minimal work, a house name, and a drink no competitor across the street was selling. The name may owe something to Palmer Cox's Brownies, though the connection is only a guess: the impish little figures whose illustrated books were enormously popular from the 1880s onward and whose likeness turned up on everything from candy tins to cameras; fountain men borrowed fashionable names freely, and a small, sharp, gingery drink would have suited the association. Ginger extract itself was a fountain and pharmacy staple long before it became a novelty, valued as a warming carminative as much as a flavor.