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Ginger Ale Sour
Four drams lemon syrup, 2 drams lemon juice, enough ginger ale to fill 8-ounce bottle.
A soda-fountain formula rather than a cocktail: sweet-tart lemon base in the bottom of the glass, ginger ale poured on top. The whole thing scales off the fluid dram, which is the only unit you need to decode.
- Fluid dramsA fluid dram is 1/8 fluid ounce, about 3.7 ml. So 4 drams of lemon syrup is 1/2 oz (1 tablespoon) and 2 drams of lemon juice is 1/4 oz (1 1/2 teaspoons).
- The 8-ounce bottleThe syrup and juice together come to only 3/4 ounce, so ginger ale makes up the remaining 7-plus ounces: the drink is overwhelmingly carbonated water and ginger flavour with a lemon accent.
- Lemon syrupFountain lemon syrups were heavy sugar syrups, often around two parts sugar to one water, and were commonly flavoured with lemon oil or tincture (sometimes with added acid) rather than juice alone. A homemade heavy syrup with a strip of zest steeped in it is a reasonable match; commercial lemon squash or cordial is thinner and more acidic, so cut it back.
- Why the juice is separateThe syrup would have carried the sugar and most of the lemon aroma, so the fresh juice is presumably there for the acid that gives the drink its name; using only one or the other flattens it.
- Pouring orderThe wording ('enough ginger ale to fill') implies syrup and juice go in first and the ale is added to fill. Nothing further is specified; the less it is stirred once the ale is in, the more carbonation survives.
- Yield and iceOne 8-ounce serving. The recipe mentions neither ice nor chilling; if your ginger ale is at room temperature you will want ice, and will have to accept the dilution.
Soda fountain manuals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were written as dispensers' reference books, which is why the formula reads like a prescription rather than a recipe: drams, minims and ounces were the apothecary units the trade grew out of, American soda water having been dispensed largely from pharmacies. "Sour" here appears to borrow the name of the bar drink, a spirit balanced with lemon and sugar, and apply it to a temperance version. Ginger ale itself is generally traced to Irish and Canadian brewers of ginger beer, and it was among the fountain's standard carbonated bases alongside plain soda water, flavoured strongly enough to carry a short list of additions like this one.