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Fruit Punch (Into a large punch bowl put)
Into a large punch bowl put 2 quarts of American Claret Syrup, i quart American Champagne Syrup, 1 pint of American Crushed Pineapple, and a large cake of ice. Add the juice of 3 oranges and 6 lemons. Sweeten to taste with sugar. In addition, slice an orange and lemon in thin slices to float on top. Use a ladle to serve the punch by ladling 2 ounces into a phosphate glass, and then fill with solid soda.
A soda-fountain punch, built as a bowl of concentrate and finished glass by glass at the tap. Everything here is non-alcoholic despite the wine names.
- "American Claret Syrup" and "American Champagne Syrup"Fountain syrups flavoured to suggest wine, containing none. Formulas varied from house to house; claret syrup was generally a red fruit blend, champagne syrup a paler, tarter one. Neither is sold now; a grenadine-and-tart-cherry blend stands in for the first, a white grape or muscat syrup for the second.
- American Crushed PineappleCrushed pineapple packed in heavy syrup, fruit and all, not juice; 'American' here is most likely a brand or supplier designation. Canned crushed pineapple in syrup is the direct equivalent; drain nothing.
- Solid sodaThe hinge of the drink. A "solid" stream is the full, coarse flow of carbonated water drawn straight into the glass so it fills with liquid rather than head, as distinct from the fine spray stream used to raise foam. Pour down the side of a tilted glass and modern seltzer behaves the same way.
- Phosphate glassA small fountain glass, commonly six to eight ounces. With 2 ounces of punch that puts the finished drink somewhere around one part syrup to two or three parts soda -- taste and adjust before you commit the bowl.
- A large cake of iceA single block, not cubes, so it chills without watering the concentrate down over a long service. A litre of water frozen in a loaf tin or plastic tub does the job.
- Sweeten to tasteThe syrups are already sweet; the 3 oranges and 6 lemons are there to pull it back. Add sugar, if at all, as simple syrup rather than granulated, which dissolves poorly in a cold bowl.
- YieldRoughly three and a half quarts of concentrate before ice and fruit, which is about 55 servings of 2 ounces -- built to run a party or a counter, not a dinner table. Quarter it for household quantities.
Books like this one were written for the man behind the fountain, and these syrups were sold to a trade that served temperance customers, Sunday drinkers and children from the same marble counter. Fountain punches of this kind were the soda dispenser's answer to the party bowl -- the same theatre of floating citrus wheels and a block of ice, the same ladle, but the strength came from carbonation rather than spirits. The phosphate glass in the last line points to the fountain's other staple, the acid phosphate drink, and shows how completely this recipe belongs to the counter rather than the kitchen: the punch is only a concentrate until the soda tap finishes it.