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Elks' Delight
Juice of half an orange, juice of half a lemon, pure grape juice 1 ounce, powdered sugar 2 teaspoonfuls. Cracked ice to half fill glass, plain water to finish; shake, serve in 12-ounce lemonade glass. Garnish with slice of orange and cherry.
A fountain lemonade built on citrus and grape juice, mixed to order in a single tall glass. Nothing here is difficult, but several of the terms mean something other than what they look like.
- An ounce means a fluid ounceThe 1 ounce of grape juice is 2 tablespoons. Half an orange yields roughly 2 tablespoons of juice and half a lemon about 1 tablespoon, so the drink is mostly ice and water by volume.
- "Powdered sugar" is not confectioners' sugarIn the soda trade this meant finely milled granulated sugar, sold that way so it would dissolve in cold liquid. Modern confectioners' sugar contains cornstarch and will cloud the glass; use superfine (caster) sugar, or a spoonful of simple syrup instead.
- Plain water, deliberatelyA fountain dispensed both carbonated and still water, and this formula specifies plain. It is a lemonade rather than a soda. Carbonated water works, but add it after shaking and stir gently rather than shaking it.
- Pure grape juiceUnsweetened Concord grape juice is the closest match to what a fountain kept on hand. Sweetened grape drink or cocktail will make the two teaspoons of sugar excessive.
- Cracked ice, not cubesCracked or coarsely crushed ice chills and dilutes fast during the shake, which is how the drink reaches its intended strength. Whole cubes leave it sharp and undiluted.
- Shaking with the ice in the glassThe recipe puts the cracked ice and water into the serving glass and then says to shake, which in practice meant a metal tin over the glass, the contents shaken and returned to it. A cocktail shaker does the same job.
- YieldOne 12-ounce glass, one serving. The garnish is a slice of orange and a cherry; the recipe does not specify how the slice is cut or what kind of cherry.
Soda fountain manuals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are full of drinks named for fraternal orders, lodges and clubs — the Elks, the Masons, the Odd Fellows. The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks was founded in New York in 1868 and was a large and widely known organization by the time books like this one were compiled, and its name attaches to more than one fountain formula. The drink itself is simply a fortified lemonade: citrus, sugar, and grape juice for color and body. Unfermented grape juice was promoted in this period as a wholesome alternative to wine, which made it a natural fountain ingredient.