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Frigidine
Make a syrup of 1¼ ounces citric acid; 4 drams lemon essence; 4 drams compound tincture gentian; ½ gallon syrup. Never serve with ice cream, and do not serve too sweet.
A fountain dispenser's working formula rather than a home recipe: a concentrated flavoring syrup meant to be drawn off by the ounce and shot with carbonated water. As printed it cannot be followed.
- The acid load is far out of rangeFourteen ounces of citric acid crystals in half a gallon of syrup works out to roughly a 20 percent solution, many times the acidity of lemonade. Even diluted at the fountain that is an erosive dose for tooth enamel and an irritant to the mouth and stomach. The figure may be a compositor's error for drams, the unit used for the two flavorings, but the book does not say so and we will not guess on the reader's behalf.
- Compound tincture of gentian is a drug preparationIt was and is a pharmacopoeial bitter — gentian root with bitter orange peel and cardamom in dilute alcohol — sold as an appetite stimulant, not as a food flavoring. It belongs to the era when the soda fountain sat at the front of a pharmacy. Anyone wanting a bitter note in a modern syrup should work from a current beverage-bitters recipe.
- A dram is not a teaspoonA fluid dram is one eighth of a fluid ounce, about 3.7 mL, so four drams is half a fluid ounce.
- "Syrup" means plain simple syrupAt the fountain, unqualified "syrup" is the standard stock simple syrup — sugar dissolved in water and kept heavy, which may be why the dispenser's own instruction is to keep the finished drink from being too sweet.
- Lemon essenceFountain "essence" of lemon was lemon oil dissolved in alcohol, considerably stronger than a modern supermarket lemon extract and not interchangeable with lemon juice.
- Why never with ice creamThis much free acid curdles dairy on contact, breaking a float or milkshake into grainy curds and whey.
"Frigidine" is a trade-style name of the sort American fountain men coined by the dozen around the turn of the twentieth century — apparently a Latinate coinage suggesting frigidus, cold, promising refreshment without naming a flavor. Formulas like this one show how thin the line still was between the drugstore's prescription counter and its marble fountain: citric acid and gentian tincture came off the same shelves that supplied the dispensing chemist, and tonic bitters were poured into carbonated water on the understanding that a bitter, sharply acid drink braced the system in hot weather. The dispenser's terse closing rules — no ice cream, not too sweet — read as the voice of someone who had watched both mistakes ruin a glass in front of a customer.