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Creme de Menthe Syrup
American Concentrated Creme de Menthe, 1 quart; Plain Syrup, 3 quarts; Fruit Acid, 1 ounce.
This is a fountain formula rather than a set of instructions: four parts by volume, mixed cold and bottled. Everything hinges on what the first ingredient actually was.
- The concentrate is not the liqueur"American Concentrated Creme de Menthe" was a flavoring concentrate sold to soda fountains by supply houses, built on peppermint oil and, in many formulations, already sweetened and colored. Substituting bottled creme de menthe liqueur at the same 1:3 ratio gives an alcoholic syrup; substituting peppermint extract at that ratio gives something closer to mouthwash, since extract is many times stronger.
- Plain syrupFountain plain syrup was a heavy simple syrup, dissolved without browning and cooled; published formulas vary but are generally well denser than the modern 1:1 ratio. Thinner modern 1:1 syrup will give a weaker, less stable result and will spoil faster.
- Fruit acidNot a fruit product. "Fruit acid" in fountain work meant a solution of citric or tartaric acid in water, commonly one part acid to one part water, used to sharpen sweet syrups and help preserve them. One ounce in a gallon is a small correction, not a flavor in its own right.
- Yield and scaleAs written this makes one gallon of finished syrup. For a home batch, divide by eight: 1/2 cup concentrate, 1 1/2 cups plain syrup, and roughly 3/4 teaspoon of acid solution.
- How it was servedAbout 1 to 1 1/2 fluid ounces of syrup in a glass, filled with carbonated water and stirred with the drawing stream. The same syrup went over ice cream and into green sodas and phosphates, a phosphate meaning a few drops of acid phosphate solution added to the glass.
- ColorIf your flavoring is clear, the drink will be too. Fountain trade practice was to tint with a green food color to match the expected appearance; the recipe assumes the concentrate arrived already green.
- KeepingA syrup this sweet keeps for weeks refrigerated in a clean bottle. Fountains held it at room temperature in the syrup rail, which is why the acid and the high sugar concentration both matter.
Crème de menthe as a liqueur is generally traced to French distillers of the later nineteenth century, and by the 1900s its bright green sweetness was familiar enough that American soda fountains wanted the taste without the alcohol. Supply houses obliged with "concentrated" flavoring essences named after the liqueurs they imitated — crème de menthe, crème de cacao, kola, maraschino — which the dispenser cut with plain syrup to a working strength at his own counter. Formulas like this one are essentially inventory instructions: the fountain man bought the expensive concentrate by the quart and stretched it fourfold, adding a measured dose of acid to keep the sweetness from going flat on the tongue. The genre was already well established before 1920, and is often said to have found its widest commercial audience in the Prohibition years, when the fountain took over a good deal of the saloon's social function and its vocabulary along with it.