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Chocolate Mint
Good.
Draw 2 ounces of American Chocolate Syrup into a glass, add a couple of sprigs of field mint, ½ ounce American Crême de Menthe Syrup, add ice cream, and draw fine and coarse stream to fill glass. American Orange and Grape are very fine served with mint, but when served a little shaved ice should be used in place of the ice cream, and a dash of phosphate added.
A fountain formula written for a soda jerk standing at a marble counter with a bank of syrup pumps and a two-stream carbonator. Everything in it can be rebuilt at home once you know what the equipment did.
- Fine and coarse streamFountain draught arms had two streams, a coarse one and a fine one, and formulas routinely specify which to use; broadly, the coarse stream mixed the syrup and the fine stream filled and finished the glass, though manuals differ on the details. With a siphon or bottled seltzer, pour the first third briskly onto the syrup, then trickle the rest down the side.
- "American" syrupsThese are brand references to a house line of fountain syrups, not a style. Any good chocolate syrup will do; for the crème de menthe syrup, use a non-alcoholic mint syrup, since the fountain version contained no spirits despite the name.
- Quantities and glassTwo ounces of chocolate syrup plus half an ounce of mint syrup suits a standard fountain glass, roughly 8 to 12 ounces; the book does not say which size. That is a sweet drink by current taste; an ounce and a half of chocolate is closer to modern palates. Makes one.
- Field mintWild mint, gathered rather than bought; in American usage the name covers Mentha canadensis as well as Mentha arvensis. Spearmint is the nearest supermarket equivalent. Slap the sprigs between your palms before dropping them in so the oils release.
- Ice creamOne small scoop of vanilla, added before the soda water so the stream aerates it. Chocolate ice cream turns the drink heavy and muddies the mint.
- PhosphateA dash means a few drops of acid phosphate, a dilute phosphoric acid solution that fountains used to add a dry, tart edge without the fruit flavour of citric acid. It is still sold for cocktail and soda work; a squeeze of lemon is not the same thing but is the usual stand-in.
- The orange and grape variationNote that this version drops the ice cream entirely and uses shaved ice, so it stays a clear, sharp soda rather than a creamy one.
The American Soda Book appears to belong to a whole shelf of trade manuals published by syrup houses for the men working behind the fountain — an inference from the recipes themselves, which double as advertising: nearly every ingredient is named with the company's own brand attached. The American soda fountain reached its height in the first decades of the twentieth century, when the drugstore counter served as a respectable public gathering place and, after 1920, as the legal substitute for the saloon. Crème de menthe syrup borrows the name and the green colour of a French liqueur while containing no alcohol at all, and acid phosphate gave fountain drinks the bracing dryness that carbonation alone could not.