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Chocolate Sherry
One ounce hot chocolate syrup, ⅓ ounce sherry wine, water to fill mug. Finish with whipped cream.
A hot fountain drink built in the mug rather than a recipe in the usual sense: syrup, fortified wine, hot water, cream on top. The proportions assume a fountain's standard mug and its standard chocolate syrup.
- The measures are fluid ouncesOne ounce of syrup is two tablespoons; ⅓ ounce is two teaspoons. Fountain syrups were commonly drawn by pump or ladle, so these were likely working approximations rather than careful measures.
- What a mug heldThe recipe does not say; a fountain hot-drink mug of the period was probably in the region of 6 to 8 ounces, which would make the water the bulk of the drink. Two teaspoons of sherry is a flavouring note, not a fortification.
- Fountain chocolate syrupFountain syrups of the period were typically cocoa or chocolate cooked with sugar and water to a heavy syrup and kept hot. Modern chocolate sauce is thicker and often contains fat and dairy; a plain cocoa syrup, or cocoa and sugar simple syrup, is closer to the original character.
- The water should be hot, not boilingThe water should be hot -- the recipe does not specify a temperature, only that the water fills the mug. Fountain hot water was drawn from a heated tank or urn.
- Which sherryThe recipe says only 'sherry wine'. A sweet or medium sherry, such as a cream or oloroso, suits the drink better than a dry fino.
- The creamWhipped cream here means lightly sweetened cream whipped soft enough to float and slowly melt in, not a stiff piped rosette. Add it after the mug is filled and do not stir.
- YieldOne mug, one serving.
American soda fountains ran a winter trade in hot drinks to fill the months when nobody wanted iced soda, and dispensers' manuals carry lists of hot chocolates, beef teas, clam bouillons and malted milks alongside the summer formulas. Wine-flavored fountain drinks appear in fountain literature before national Prohibition, with a fraction of an ounce of sherry, port or claret used as a flavoring. The mug, the syrup measure and the crown of whipped cream are characteristic of American counter service.