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Champagne Syrup (Stock Champagne Syrup pints)
Stock Champagne Syrup, 7 pints; American Grape Juice, 1 pint; American Fruit Acid, 3 ounces; American Sicilian Lemon Extract, 1 ounce; American Sarsaparilla Color, ¾ ounce.
This is a fountain formula rather than a domestic recipe: a batch of flavoring syrup meant to be measured into a glass and topped with carbonated water. Nearly every ingredient is a proprietary product sold by a soda-fountain supply house, so the sheet reads as a blending order rather than a set of instructions.
- What it makesThe quantities total a little over a gallon of finished syrup, which at the usual fountain draw of 1 to 1½ fluid ounces per glass works out to somewhere between about 85 and 130 drinks. Halve or quarter everything if you only want a bottle.
- Stock syrupThe first ingredient is a "stock" syrup, apparently a base already sold under that name rather than something the dispenser cooked. Fountain stock or simple syrups were generally heavy cane syrups, much thicker than the 1:1 syrup most bars use now; a modern heavy sugar syrup is the nearest everyday equivalent.
- There is no champagne in itThe name describes a flavor profile, not a wine: nothing in the list is fermented, and the sparkle would have come entirely from the carbonated water. On the evidence of this formula the intended impression was a tart, faintly lemony, tinted syrup.
- American Fruit AcidA branded acid solution, usually citric or tartaric in water, sold ready to blend. Its strength is not stated here, so the 3 ounces cannot be converted honestly — a modern cook should acidify to taste with dissolved citric acid rather than guess at the original concentration.
- Sicilian Lemon ExtractA proprietary lemon extract, i.e. lemon oil carried in alcohol; its strength is not stated. One ounce per gallon is a small dose by volume and potentially large in effect, so add it last and by degrees.
- Sarsaparilla ColorNot a flavoring. Fountain "colors" of this type were caramel solutions used to tint a syrup; omitting it changes nothing but the shade.
- Grape juice"American Grape Juice" appears to be another supply-house branded product, presumably an unfermented bottled juice of the kind that became commercially available in the later nineteenth century. The variety is not stated.
- Keeping itA syrup this sweet and this acid should keep well refrigerated, though citrus oils tend to fade in an acid medium. Blend in quantities you will use within a few weeks.
Soda-fountain manuals of this period functioned as trade formularies: the dispenser bought syrups, extracts, acids and colors from a supply house and combined them to fixed ratios, which is why a page like this lists proprietary products instead of fruit. "Champagne" was one of a family of fountain flavors — champagne, ginger ale, birch beer, sarsaparilla — that borrowed the vocabulary of alcoholic or bottled drinks for something poured over carbonated water at the counter, and here a fruit acid and a citrus oil together stand in for the dry, sharp impression of sparkling wine without any wine. The formula shows how far the American fountain ran on prepared goods: the skill on offer was accurate blending and a clean draw, not cookery.