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Cream Freeze
One-half glass shaved ice, 3 spoonfuls ice cream, 2 ounces orgeat or pistachio syrup. Shake, fill with soda, mix with spoon.
A fountain formula written for someone standing behind a marble counter with a siphon at hand. Translated into home terms it is a single tall drink, and the order of operations is the whole trick.
- The glassFountain glasses of the period ran anywhere from about 8 to 12 oz. "One-half glass shaved ice" means filling whatever glass you use halfway, roughly a cup of finely shaved or crushed ice in a tall one.
- SpoonfulsA fountain spoon held roughly a tablespoon of stiff ice cream, so three spoonfuls is something short of 1/4 cup. Vanilla is the neutral choice here; anything strongly flavoured will fight the syrup.
- Orgeat and pistachio syrupOrgeat is a sweet almond syrup, originally barley-based (from French orge), and is sold today for cocktail use. Fountain "pistachio" syrup of the period was often almond flavour tinted green rather than true pistachio, so orgeat plus a drop of colour may be closer to the original than a modern nut paste.
- Two ounces is not a misprintFountain syrups were dosed heavily because the soda water diluted them hard. If you are using a modern, sweeter orgeat, start at an ounce and a half and taste.
- Soda"Fill with soda" means charged water from a siphon, delivered under pressure. Plain seltzer poured briskly down the side of the glass gets you there; use it fresh so the drink keeps its lift.
- Shake, then fillThe shaking is done on the ice, ice cream and syrup only, before any soda goes in. Carbonated water in a sealed shaker will erupt.
- Mix with spoonA single fold with a long spoon after the soda is added, no more. Stirring the gas out leaves a flat, sweet glass of milk.
- YieldOne drink, served immediately with a spoon and a straw.
The "cream freeze" belonged to a family of fountain drinks that dispensers' manuals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries catalogued with near-legal precision: egg drinks, phosphates, lactarts, frappes, freezes and ice cream sodas, each with its own fixed proportions so that any clerk could reproduce the house standard. A freeze sat between a soda and a milkshake, shaken with shaved ice until half-frozen and then lengthened with charged water. Orgeat and pistachio were both fountain flavours essentially almond in character; the green tint that came to signal pistachio in American confectionery is often said, though the attribution is folkloric, to date from this period of coloured fountain syrups rather than from the nut itself. Books like this one were trade manuals, sold to druggists who kept soda counters.