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Coffee
Pour 1 or 2 teaspoonfuls of American Condensed Coffee into a cup, add a little sweet cream and a lump of sugar, and fill cup with boiling water. Much improved by topping with whipped cream.
This is a fountain formula rather than a brewing method: everything depends on a bottled coffee concentrate that the soda clerk kept beside the syrups. Substituting for it is the whole job.
- American Condensed CoffeeA proprietary coffee extract or concentrate of the period, sold ready to dilute; such preparations were sometimes sweetened and sometimes cut with chicory, though the recipe does not say which this was. Nothing on a supermarket shelf is identical; the nearest equivalents are liquid coffee concentrate sold for iced coffee, or a heaping half-teaspoon of instant espresso powder per cup.
- Adjust the sugarSome condensed coffee extracts were sold already sweetened, in which case the lump of sugar was a top-up. If you use unsweetened concentrate or instant espresso, expect to add more; if you use a sweetened bottled concentrate, leave the sugar out until you have tasted.
- "Sweet cream"Means fresh unsoured cream, not sweetened cream. Any pouring cream works, and a tablespoon is about right for a standard cup.
- Boiling waterThe recipe calls for it, and with a concentrate or instant powder there is nothing to over-extract. Some tasters prefer water a little off the boil for a smoother cup; either will work.
- The whipped creamThe recipe leaves it unspecified, so sweeten it or not to taste, remembering the drink beneath is already sugared. Whip it only to soft peaks so it settles into the coffee rather than sitting on it as a cap.
- YieldOne cup. Scaling up is a matter of counting teaspoons; there is nothing to brew.
Soda fountains were year-round businesses in cold cities, and hot drinks kept the marble counter earning through the winter, when nobody wanted an ice cream soda. Coffee served this way was often not brewed on the premises at all, but made up from a ready-prepared sweetened coffee extract, which meant a cup could be produced in seconds without tying up a range. Condensed and essence-of-coffee preparations, some of them cut with chicory, were widely manufactured in the United States and Britain through the second half of the nineteenth century and were sold on the promise of speed. The whipped cream finish is pure fountain practice, borrowing the trimmings of a sundae for a drink.