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Eastern Cooler
Oné ounce Roman punch syrup, ½ ounce orange syrup, ¼ ounce port wine, ½ ounce lemon syrup, ¼ teaspoonful acid solution phosphate, ½ glass cracked ice. Mix in 14-ounce straight lemonade glass. Fill with coarse stream. Decorate with slice of pineapple and top with two cherries.
A fountain drink built in the glass, meant to be assembled with a syrup pump in one hand and a draft arm in the other. Everything translates to a home bar except the equipment, which is what most of these notes address.
- All ounces are fluid ouncesFountain syrups were pumped or dipped with a graduated ladle, a pump stroke generally running about an ounce. Measure with a jigger: 1 oz Roman punch, 1½ oz orange, ½ oz lemon, ¼ oz port.
- Roman punch syrupNot a commercial product you will find now. Period formulas are a lemon-and-orange syrup flavored with rum essence, sometimes with a little wine or arrack; the name comes from the frozen Roman punch served between dinner courses. A rich lemon syrup with a teaspoon of dark rum stirred in is the nearest honest substitute.
- Acid phosphateA dilute solution of phosphoric acid with calcium, magnesium and potassium salts, used at the fountain to give sweet syrups a clean sourness without the fruit flavor of citric acid. It is still manufactured for the cocktail trade. A quarter teaspoon is a small dose; do not increase it, and do not substitute lemon juice one for one, as the effect is sharper and less fruity.
- Coarse streamThe soda draft arm had two settings: a fine spray that whipped foam, and a coarse stream for volume. Filling with the coarse stream means pouring chilled, well-carbonated seltzer straight down the side of the glass to about a finger from the rim, with as little agitation as possible.
- The glass and the iceA 14-ounce straight lemonade glass is a tall, untapered tumbler. Half a glass of cracked ice means roughly 7 ounces by volume of coarsely broken ice, not cubes and not crushed; cubes leave too little contact, crushed ice waters the drink before it is served.
- Order of buildingSyrups, port and phosphate go in first and are stirred together, then the ice, then the charge; stir once with a long spoon after filling, no more.
- The portA quarter ounce is a colouring and flavouring measure rather than a drink. The recipe does not specify a style; a ruby port will give more colour than a tawny.
- YieldOne drink. The pineapple slice sits on the rim and the two cherries go on top of the ice, speared or dropped, and are meant to be seen from across the counter.
Soda fountain manuals of the early twentieth century organized their formulas by type 【phosphates, sodas, coolers, egg drinks】, and "coolers" were the tall, iced, heavily garnished end of the range, distinct from the short phosphates and the ice cream sodas. The Roman punch syrup here is a fountain echo of a dining room fashion: Roman punch, a rum-spiked citrus ice, was served midway through long nineteenth-century dinners to reset the palate, and by the time this book was printed the flavor had migrated into a bottle of syrup on the back bar. The splash of port is typical of the period's willingness to use small quantities of wine as flavoring at an otherwise non-alcoholic counter, a practice generally said to have faded from American fountain work with Prohibition. Acid phosphate, meanwhile, was the workhorse of the trade, and the reason fountain drinks of this era taste tarter and more mineral than their modern descendants.