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Celery Phosphate
Simple Syrup, 1 gallon.
Acid Phosphate Celery Extract, 2 ounces.
A few shakes in each tumbler
A fountain formula rather than a household one: it assumes a gallon jar of syrup, a dasher bottle at your elbow and a carbonator under the counter. The proportions scale down cleanly once you know what the ingredients are.
- The ambiguous line"Acid Phosphate Celery Extract, 2 ounces" reads as two separate items with one quantity between them, and the original gives no way to tell which the 2 ounces belongs to. Fountain formularies of the period commonly carried celery extract in the syrup by the ounce and dispensed acid phosphate from a separate dasher bottle, which would fit the closing instruction; on that reading, treat the 2 ounces as the flavouring extract and add the phosphate by the shake.
- Acid phosphateNot an archaic mystery but a dilute, buffered phosphoric acid solution sold to druggists as a souring agent. It gives a dry, mineral tartness quite unlike citric acid or lemon juice. It is still manufactured for the cocktail and soda trade; lemon juice is not a substitute, as it brings sugar, pulp and a competing flavour.
- Celery extractAn alcoholic tincture of celery seed, not celery juice and not the salt. Celery seed extract is sold as a baking and bitters ingredient; if you make your own, steep crushed celery seed in neutral spirit and use it sparingly, since seed flavour is far stronger than the stalk.
- Simple syrupFountain simple syrup of this era was heavy, roughly two parts sugar to one of water by weight, not the equal-parts syrup common in bars now. A thinner syrup will taste watery at the standard pour.
- Proportions per glassA tumbler at the fountain held about 8 ounces. Standard practice was 1 to 1.5 ounces of flavoured syrup in the glass, a few dashes of acid phosphate, then carbonated water drawn to fill and stirred once.
- YieldA gallon of syrup at an ounce and a quarter per drink is something over a hundred glasses. For home use, scale to a cup of syrup with about three-quarters of a teaspoon of celery extract.
- Keeping itSugar syrup with an alcoholic extract keeps for weeks refrigerated, but the celery aroma fades quickly. Mix small batches rather than holding a gallon.
Phosphates were the soda fountain's answer to the tartness problem: acid phosphate soured a drink without adding fruit flavour of its own, so it could carry anything from cherry to coffee to sarsaparilla, and by the 1890s a fountain dispensed it from a dasher bottle as casually as a bar pours bitters. Celery belonged to the same shelf for medicinal reasons as much as culinary ones, being widely promoted in the late nineteenth century as a nerve tonic and a remedy for neurasthenia, a general medical diagnosis of the period; celery-flavoured tonics and sodas were sold on that reputation, and the survival of celery soda as a delicatessen drink is often connected to the same fashion, though the descent is a plausible link rather than an established one. Books like this one were written for the druggist who ran the fountain as an extension of the dispensary, which is why the formula is given in gallons of stock syrup and ounces of extract rather than in glasses.