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Ginger Ale, Belfast
Dissolve 1 pound solid ginger ale extract in 11½ gallons of water at a temperature of 150 degrees Fahrenheit, and filter through filter paper. Dissolve 40 pounds best granulated sugar in 6½ gallons warm water, and add 2½ ounces American Sugar Color. Blend this thoroughly with the dissolved and filtered extract, and filter the whole through heavy flannel or a felt filter bag. To each gallon of syrup add 1 ounce American fruit acid. Add this just before using.
This is a soda-fountain bulk formula, not a household recipe: it yields something on the order of 18 gallons of finished syrup, meant to be drawn an ounce or two at a time against carbonated water. Everything below is about scaling it down and translating the trade ingredients.
- The scaleThe water alone comes to 18 gallons, so the finished syrup is at least that once 40 pounds of sugar is dissolved into it — enough for well over a thousand drinks. Divide the whole formula by 32 for a manageable batch: about ½ ounce of extract, 5¾ cups water for the extract, 1¼ pounds sugar, 3¼ cups warm water for the sugar, and about 1/13 ounce of caramel color.
- "Solid ginger ale extract"A concentrated flavor compound sold to fountain operators, evaporated to a solid or semi-solid mass rather than a fluid; ginger would have been the base, probably with citrus and spice oils. Nothing sold retail today matches it exactly; a modern ginger extract or a strong ginger-and-citrus-peel infusion is the nearest substitute, and quantities will have to be judged by taste.
- American Sugar ColorTrade caramel color, made by controlled burning of sugar. It is there only for the amber tint — 2½ ounces in 18 gallons is a very light hand. Any commercial caramel coloring works, or a spoonful of dark caramel cooked from sugar and let cool.
- American fruit acidTrade shorthand, most likely citric or tartaric acid, sometimes a blend, sold as a white crystalline powder. One ounce per gallon of syrup works out to roughly ½ teaspoon per cup — assertively tart, which is what carries a dry ginger ale.
- Why the acid goes in lastThe instruction to "add this just before using" is the hinge of the formula. Acid in a stored sugar syrup slowly inverts the sucrose and, more to the point, dulls and flattens the ginger and citrus oils over weeks. Hold the syrup unacidified and acidify only the working portion.
- 150 degrees, then filterHot but well below a simmer — hot enough to dissolve the resinous extract, cool enough not to drive off the volatile ginger and citrus oils. The paper filtration removes the insoluble gum and resin that would otherwise cloud the drink; the flannel or felt bag afterward polishes the blended syrup. Coffee filters and a fine jelly bag do the same work at small scale.
- Serving ratioFountain practice was generally 1 to 1½ ounces of syrup in a glass, filled with carbonated water and stirred once. At the small-batch scale above — about 72 ounces of syrup — expect roughly fifty to seventy drinks.
- Keeping itThere is no preservative here beyond sugar. Refrigerate the syrup and use it within a few weeks.
Ginger ale of this name is generally traced to Belfast, where Cantrell & Cochrane bottled a ginger ale that became well enough known in the American trade that "Belfast" turned into a style designation rather than a place of origin. Formula books like this one existed because the syrup was the druggist's own product — extract houses sold the flavor concentrate, and the operator bought sugar, acid and color by the barrel and blended to a published ratio. The bottled soft drink industry eventually absorbed all of this work, but at the turn of the century a glass of ginger ale was still something compounded on the premises.