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Calisaya Elixir
This is a Fine Tonic.
Draw 1½ ounces American Calisaya Elixir in a mineral glass, add dash of phosphate, and fill glass with solid soda.
A fountain tonic in the literal sense: a bitter bark elixir stretched with carbonated water. Everything hinges on sourcing the elixir, since the rest is technique.
- Calisaya elixirAn officinal bitter made from the bark of Cinchona calisaya, usually compounded with aromatics in sweetened alcohol. It is no longer a pharmacy item; the nearest current equivalents are Italian elisir di china, a cinchona-forward amaro, or one of the modern calisaya liqueurs, which may be sweeter than the officinal version.
- The quantity"½ ounces" appears to be a slip in the book; read it as half a fluid ounce, one tablespoon. Fountain pours for elixirs of this kind were generally in this range.
- PhosphateAcid phosphate, a dilute solution of phosphoric acid with calcium, magnesium and potassium salts. It gives a dry mineral tartness without the fruit character of citric acid. Still manufactured for bar use; a dash is somewhere around an eighth to a quarter teaspoon.
- Mineral glassA footed soda glass of roughly 8 to 10 ounces. Chill it — the drink has no ice and relies on cold carbonated water for its body.
- Solid sodaFountain apparatus offered a coarse or "solid" stream and a fine spray stream. Solid means the plain heavy stream, drawn straight down the glass, used when there is nothing to foam up. A hard-carbonated seltzer poured directly, not trickled down the side, gets the same effect.
- Quinine contentCinchona preparations carry quinine alkaloids. The amount in a single drink depends entirely on the elixir used, but anyone with a known quinine sensitivity, or on anticoagulants, should skip it.
- YieldOne glass, served at once. Bitter-and-soda drinks flatten fast and the bark astringency sharpens as they warm.
Calisaya takes its name from Cinchona calisaya, the yellow-barked Andean tree whose bark supplied quinine to the nineteenth century and whose bitterness supplied the era's tonics. Elixir of calisaya was a standard drugstore preparation, sold as a stomachic and appetite-restorer, and because the American soda fountain sat inside the drugstore it was natural for the same bottle to serve both the prescription counter and the marble slab. Drinks like this one sit precisely on that line: the book calls it a fine tonic rather than a flavor, and the acid phosphate that dries it out was itself sold as a nerve remedy. The same bark tradition survives in Italian elisir di china and in the quinine of tonic water, though the medical claims have long since fallen away.