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Egg Lactart (Simple Syrup ounce Egg Lactart)
Simple Syrup, ½ ounce; Egg, 1; Lactart, 1 dram.
Nutmeg (grated) Sufficient quantity
A fountain formula rather than a kitchen recipe: a short list of what goes into the glass before it is shaken with ice and drawn off with carbonated water. Two things about it do not survive into a modern soda fountain, and one of them is the whole drink.
- Raw egg, never heatedThe egg goes into the glass whole and raw and is drunk that way. Nothing in the drink brings it near a safe temperature, and the lactic acid and carbonation do nothing to a Salmonella load. This is why the drink cannot be recommended as written; if you want an egg drink today, work from a current recipe built on pasteurised eggs.
- What lactart wasLactart was a trade preparation of dilute lactic acid sold to soda fountains as a souring agent, an alternative to the acid phosphate and to citric acid. It is not a supermarket item and it is not interchangeable, spoonful for spoonful, with lemon juice or food-grade lactic acid sold for brewing and cheesemaking.
- A dramA fluid dram is one-eighth of a fluid ounce, a shade under 4 ml. Acids and flavouring extracts in fountain formulas are commonly measured in drams, and at that scale a small error in the acid is a large error in the finished drink.
- Half an ounce of syrupThat is one tablespoon of simple syrup, less than the syrup charge given in many fountain formulas, which often run to an ounce or more. On the face of it the drink leans sour and eggy rather than sweet.
- The missing ingredientNo liquid is listed because the fountain supplied it: the page gives only what went into the glass before it was finished with carbonated water. The formula itself specifies no method.
- Sufficient quantity"Sufficient quantity" is pharmacist's shorthand, from the Latin quantum sufficit, a usage that reflects the fountain's origins behind the drug counter. Here it simply means nutmeg to taste.
Soda fountains at the turn of the twentieth century sold egg drinks, and an egg drink was understood to be food as much as refreshment, ordered by anyone who wanted something more sustaining than a lemon phosphate. The acid was the point of the exercise: lactart, acid phosphate and citric solution all gave the sharp bite that made a sweet drink taste finished, and lactart in particular was often promoted as the wholesome acid, on the traditional argument that it was the same acid found in sour milk and therefore agreeable to the stomach. That claim belongs to the advertising of the period rather than to any evidence. The fountain's descent from the pharmacy counter shows plainly in a formula like this one, written in drams and closing with a druggist's quantum sufficit.