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Celery Tonic (Simple Syrup gallon American)
Simple Syrup, 1 gallon; American Celery Tonic, 2 ounces; American Fruit Acid, 3 ounces; American Soda Foam, ½ ounce.
This is a fountain formula, not a finished drink: it makes a gallon of flavoured syrup to be drawn an ounce or so at a time and topped with carbonated water. Three of the four ingredients are proprietary trade preparations that a druggist bought by the bottle, so the work of translating it lies in identifying what they were.
- American Celery TonicA proprietary flavouring preparation; the name suggests a celery-seed extract or tincture, possibly with supporting aromatics, though the maker's actual formula is not recorded here. Two ounces per gallon is a light hand; if you work from celery seed tincture of your own making, start well below that and taste, since seed oil is aggressive and bitter in excess.
- American Fruit AcidTrade name for an acid solution, generally citric or tartaric acid dissolved in water, sold ready to pour. Three ounces of solution is not three ounces of dry acid — a dry substitution at that weight would be sour to the point of undrinkable.
- American Soda FoamA foaming agent, historically an extract of quillaia (soap bark) or a gum solution, used to give the drawn glass a head. It is not a flavour and can be left out entirely with no loss but appearance. Quillaia extract is still permitted in soft drinks but at strictly limited levels.
- Ounces here are fluid ouncesFountain formulas of this period measured liquids by volume throughout. Read all four figures as fluid measure unless the ingredient is plainly a powder.
- Yield and serviceA gallon of syrup is 128 fluid ounces. At a fountain draw of 1 to 1½ ounces per glass, that is roughly 85 to 128 servings, each finished with cold carbonated water and stirred once.
- Keeping itA syrup this heavy in sugar resists spoilage, but the flavour extracts fade. Keep it capped, cold and out of light, and expect the celery character to soften within a few weeks.
Celery was one of the great American tonic flavours of the late nineteenth century, riding on a widespread belief that the plant and especially its seed acted on the nerves — celery compounds, celery bitters and celery tonic all appear in druggists' price lists alongside sarsaparilla and beef-and-iron wine. Since the soda fountain sat inside the drugstore, a flavour with medicinal standing moved easily onto the marble counter, and formulas like this one let any pharmacist assemble a house tonic from three purchased bottles and a gallon of his own syrup. The best-known survivor of the fashion is Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray, a celery soda long associated with New York delicatessens and traditionally traced to the 1860s. What the entry really documents is how the trade worked: the character of the drink came from a manufacturer's extract, and the fountain man's skill lay in proportion, dilution and a clean glass.