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Cherry Malt Tonic
Malt extract, 8 ounces; tincture celery seed, 2 drams; orange syrup, 4 ounces; comp. tincture gentian, 1 dram lemon syrup, to make 2 pints. Mix , 1 dram; lemon syrup, to make 2 pints. Mix and serve 1 ounce in an 8-ounce mineral glass, with or without phosphate.
This is a fountain syrup, not a finished drink: you build two pints of concentrate and draw an ounce at a time into a glass of carbonated water. The printed text has a typesetter's stutter — the phrase "1 dram; lemon syrup, to make 2 pints. Mix" appears twice — so read it as a single list of five ingredients.
- Fluid dramsA fluid dram is one eighth of a fluid ounce, about 3.7 mL, or roughly three quarters of a teaspoon. Two drams of celery seed tincture is about 1.5 teaspoons; one dram of gentian is a scant 3/4 teaspoon.
- Making up to two pintsLemon syrup is not a measured quantity here but the filler. Combine the malt extract, orange syrup and the two tinctures, then add lemon syrup until the total reaches 32 fluid ounces.
- No cherry in the cherry tonicThe title promises cherry and the formula does not deliver it. Why is not recoverable from the page; given the garbled typesetting, a compiling or printing error is as likely as anything. If you want the name to be honest, part of the lemon syrup can be cherry syrup.
- Malt extractThis is a thick liquid malt extract, the syrupy concentrate sold to homebrewers and bakers, not malted milk powder. It is stiff and slow; warming the jar in hot water makes it pourable and measurable.
- The two tincturesCompound tincture of gentian and tincture of celery seed were pharmacy stock, both alcoholic extracts. Neither is a grocery item now; gentian tincture is sold as a digestive bitter and celery seed tincture through herbal suppliers. Cocktail bitters are not a substitute, as they carry their own flavoring.
- Bitterness is the pointGentian is one of the most intensely bitter substances used in food. One dram spread over two pints of syrup, then diluted eight to one in the glass, is a trace — but scale the recipe carefully, because doubling the gentian by eye will ruin the batch.
- Phosphate"With or without phosphate" means acid phosphate solution, the sour, non-fruity acidulant fountain clerks used in place of citric acid. Perhaps a quarter to half a teaspoon per glass; it sharpens the malt without adding flavor of its own.
- YieldTwo pints of syrup at one ounce per glass gives about 32 drinks. Kept refrigerated in a sealed bottle it should hold for some time, the sugar in the syrups doing the preserving; the few drams of tincture add very little alcohol.
Soda fountains in the United States grew out of drugstores, and formula books like this one sat behind the counter as much for the pharmacist as for the soda clerk. A "tonic" was a specific idea rather than a vague one: bitter principles such as gentian were believed to stimulate appetite and digestion, and malt extract was widely sold in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a strengthening food for invalids and the underweight. Celery, in the same period, had a reputation as a nerve remedy — the same belief behind Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray and a long list of celery compounds and celery bitters. What the fountain did was wrap those medicinal flavors in orange and lemon syrup and carbonated water so they could be drunk for pleasure, which is roughly the same trick that gave us Coca-Cola, root beer and Moxie.