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Creme de Menthe Cooler
One and one-half ounces crême de menthe, large stream. Serve in 8-ounce phosphate.
Two lines of fountain shorthand that assume a soda dispenser and a specific glass. Translated, this is 3 tablespoons of green mint syrup topped with cold carbonated water in a tall 8-ounce glass.
- Crème de menthe means syrup hereIn a soda fountain book this is the non-alcoholic green mint syrup sold by the gallon to druggists, not the liqueur. Substitute a mint syrup (or your own sugar syrup steeped with fresh mint and tinted, if you want the colour) rather than the bottled cordial, which would make an entirely different drink.
- "Large stream"Fountain draft arms offered a coarse stream and a fine stream, and manuals generally have the coarse one delivering plain carbonated water fast and with force, which mixes the syrup without stirring, with the fine stream used to finish the glass. At home, pour chilled soda water briskly down the centre of the glass.
- "8-ounce phosphate"The name of the glass, not an instruction to add anything: an 8-ounce fountain tumbler. Note that despite the glass, no acid phosphate is called for in this drink -- here it is syrup and carbonated water only.
- ProportionsOne and a half ounces of syrup to roughly six and a half ounces of soda water, which is sweeter than most modern palates expect. An ounce is a reasonable starting point if you are using a commercial syrup.
- Temperature is the whole drinkFountain water was chilled and carbonated under pressure, so it held its gas. Chill both the syrup and the glass and use soda water straight from the refrigerator.
- YieldOne glass. Scaling up is pointless, since the soda must be poured to order.
Soda fountain manuals like this one were written for the dispenser behind the marble counter, which is why the instructions are clipped to the point of being cryptic: the glass, the syrup quantity, and which tap to use were all a trained clerk needed. "Crème de menthe" appears on fountain menus of the early twentieth century as a flavour name borrowed from the French liqueur, part of a broad habit of giving temperance drinks the glamour of the bar; the same books offer grenadine, orgeat and "claret" syrups with no alcohol in any of them. The word "phosphate" in the glass name is a fossil of the fountain's pharmacy origins, when acid phosphate solution was added to soda water as a mild tonic and lent its name to a whole family of drinks and to the tumbler they were served in.