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Egg Cider
Egg Acid Phosphate from squirter, 1 dram.
Shaved Ice ½ glas Cider to fill glass. Shake and serve with a straw.
A fountain egg drink of the type that filled the space between a soda and a meal. The terminology is dispensary shorthand, and the central problem is the egg.
- Raw shell egg, never heatedThe whole egg goes into the shaker with ice and cider and is served immediately. Nothing in the glass reaches a temperature that kills Salmonella, and neither acid phosphate nor cider is acidic enough to do the job. This is the reason the drink cannot be recommended as written; a current recipe using pasteurized egg should be used instead.
- "Egg" as the first wordFountain formulas of this period were often written as a sequence of dispensing motions rather than as a list. "Egg" here most likely means an egg broken into the mixing glass first, before the acid is drawn, though the shorthand does not say whether the whole egg or only the yolk was intended.
- Acid phosphate and the squirterAcid phosphate is a dilute solution of phosphoric acid with calcium, magnesium and potassium salts, sold to fountains as a sour agent that does not carry the fruit flavour of citrus. The "squirter" was the counter-mounted pump bottle that dispensed it. It is still made for the cocktail trade.
- A dramOne fluid dram is an eighth of a fluid ounce, roughly 3.7 ml, or about three quarters of a teaspoon. Fountain pump bottles were commonly said to deliver something in this range per pull.
- Which ciderAt an American fountain in this era, cider means sweet unfermented apple cider, not the alcoholic drink the word denotes in Britain. Fountains were frequently the alternative to the saloon, and hard cider would have defeated the point.
- "Half glass shaved ice"The standard fountain glass ran 8 to 10 ounces, so this is roughly half a cup of finely shaved ice, which chills and dilutes at the same time. Cubed ice in a shaker behaves differently and will not thin the drink the way the original intends.
- YieldOne glass, one drink.
Egg drinks were a staple of the American soda fountain in the later nineteenth century, sold less as a treat than as a restorative for people who had skipped a meal. Acid phosphate was a workhorse souring agent at the fountain, valued because it gave a clean tartness without the flavour of lemon, and phosphate drinks were common enough that "phosphate" came to serve as a general word for a fountain soda in parts of the Midwest. Sweet cider turns up in fountain manuals as a seasonal autumn base, pressed locally and sold before it turned; paired with an egg it produced something close to a cold flip without the spirits, which suited the temperance sympathies that shaped many drugstore fountains.