Home › At the Fountain › Coffee, Hot (Two pounds Mocha coffee ounces)
Coffee, Hot (Two pounds Mocha coffee ounces)
Two pounds Mocha coffee, 4 ounces glycerin. Mix the coffee and glyc-boiling water, let it run erin and pack in a percolator; add 1 gallon of through slowly, and dissolve 6 pounds of sugar in the coffee solution. To 34 full of hot water, top with serve, use 1 ounce of coffee syrup to cup ¾ full of hot water, top with whipped cream.
This is a soda-fountain coffee syrup: a strong percolated extract sweetened heavily so that an ounce of it turns a cup of hot water into a cup of coffee. Made at home it keeps in the refrigerator and behaves like a coffee cordial.
- Read the order of operationsThe lines have been jumbled in printing. The sense is: mix the coffee and glycerin, pack into a percolator, add one gallon of boiling water and let it run through slowly, then dissolve six pounds of sugar in the resulting coffee solution.
- Scale it downTwo pounds of coffee, a gallon of water and six pounds of sugar yields about a gallon of syrup. A tenth of the recipe (about 3 oz coffee, 1 2/3 cups water, 9 1/2 oz sugar, about 2 tsp glycerin) is a more realistic batch.
- GlycerinFood-grade vegetable glycerin, sold with baking or cake-decorating supplies. It is mildly sweet, holds moisture and gives fountain syrups body so they do not taste thin; it also discourages the sugar from crystallising. Omit it if you prefer, and expect a slightly thinner syrup with a shorter life.
- Mocha coffeeAt the time this meant beans shipped from the Yemeni port of Mocha, or a blend sold under that name -- not chocolate-flavoured coffee. Any good medium-dark bean works; grind it coarse, as for a percolator or French press, or the extract will clog and turn bitter.
- The percolator here is not a stovetop potThe percolator here is probably not a stovetop pot -- commercial fountain and urn 'percolators' of the period were generally tall cylinders with a filter at the base, working as drip extractors. A large pour-over cone, a chemistry-style filter or a fine sieve lined with a cloth will do the same job. The instruction to let it run through slowly is the one that matters -- a fast pour gives weak, sour syrup.
- Dissolve the sugar warmSix pounds of sugar to a gallon is a heavy syrup and dissolves far more readily while the coffee is hot. Stir it into the extract while still hot, off the heat, until the liquid runs clear.
- Serving strengthOne ounce (2 tablespoons) of syrup to a cup three-quarters full of hot water, topped with whipped cream. Taste and adjust: modern palates often want a little less sugar per cup than a period fountain served.
- KeepingThe sugar concentration preserves it reasonably well, but there is no reliable shelf life given. Refrigerate in a clean bottle and use within two or three weeks; discard at any sign of cloudiness or fermentation.
Before drip machines stood on every counter, a drugstore fountain kept coffee as a syrup, alongside vanilla, lemon and sarsaparilla, and built each cup from the same bottle with the same one-ounce measure. It is a dispensing recipe, written for a soda clerk who had a percolator, a syrup rack and a hot-water tap. Glycerin was a standard fountain ingredient of the period, valued for the smooth mouthfeel it gave to syrups and for keeping sugar in solution. The name Mocha comes from the Red Sea port through which Yemeni coffee was shipped for centuries; by 1900 it had loosened into a trade term for a rich, winey style of bean, and the chocolate association most people now hear in the word came later, from blends that paired Mocha coffee with cocoa.