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Foxy Grandpa
Two-thirds glass shaved ice, 1½ ounces grape juice, 1 ounce orange syrup, 1 dash lemon juice, 1 dash Jamaica ginger. Fill glass with plain soda, coarse stream, then serve with slice of pineapple and 1 whole cherry.
A fountain drink of the early 1900s, built in a soda glass rather than shaken. The proportions are sound; only the vocabulary and the carbonation need translating.
- Glass sizeFountain formulas of this period generally assume a soda glass of somewhere around 8 to 12 ounces. Two-thirds of that in shaved ice leaves only a few ounces of room for soda once the syrups go in.
- Shaved ice, not cubesShaved or finely crushed ice chills the drink quickly and helps carry the sweetness; with cubes the syrup is more likely to sit unmixed at the bottom.
- Orange syrupThis is fountain syrup, not liqueur and not juice: sugar, water and orange oil or juice cooked to a heavy syrup. A good orange bar syrup substitutes.
- Jamaica gingerAn alcoholic tincture of ginger sold as a pharmacy stimulant and used at the fountain a dash at a time. Modern food-grade ginger extract or a few drops of strong ginger tincture gives the same bite; do not substitute ground ginger, which will not dissolve.
- Coarse streamFountain taps offered a fine stream and a coarse stream; the coarse stream was the larger, faster flow used for filling the glass. Pouring soda down the side of the glass approximates it.
- Grape juiceAt this date this would mean unfermented bottled juice, typically Concord, deep purple in colour. White grape juice will not give the colour the drink depends on.
- YieldOne glass. The recipe specifies the garnish: a slice of pineapple and one whole cherry.
The name comes from Foxy Grandpa, a newspaper comic strip created by Charles Schultze that ran from 1900 and spawned a stage show, films and a small industry of merchandise. Soda fountains named drinks after whatever was on everyone's lips, and the trade manuals of the period do record comic-strip characters, actresses and current slang. Jamaica ginger, the sharp note here, was sold as a medicinal tincture and moved easily behind the fountain counter because the American drugstore was both pharmacy and soda bar; the same product later became notorious during Prohibition, when adulterated batches sold as drinkable alcohol caused widespread paralysis known as jake leg.