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Ginger Ale Syrup, Hub To Make Twelve Gallons of Syrup
Take 1½ ounces of Hub Ginger Ale Extract, place it in a No. 10 Wedgwood Mortar, add 2 ounces of calcined magnesia, and mix thoroughly. Add 8 gallons hot water, and filter through filter paper. Then add 50 pounds granulated sugar, 2 quarts American Lime Juice, 8 ounces American Acid, 1½ ounces acetic acid, and 3 ounces American Sarsaparilla Color. For dispensing, use 1½ ounces to a thin 9-ounce tumbler. For bottling, use 1½ ounces to a half-pint bottle, 2 ounces to an imported ginger ale bottle, and 4 ounces to a quart Apollinaris bottle. The directions given are for 12 gallons of syrup, which is a convenient quantity for a bottler to make. The dispenser can make a smaller quantity by using the ingredients in smaller quantities, but same proportions. (See "Ginger Ale Syrup, Hints on Making.")
This is a trade formula for bottlers and fountain operators, written when a druggist bought flavor extracts by the brand name and made syrup by the barrel. Scaling it down is straightforward arithmetic; sourcing the proprietary ingredients is the real obstacle.
- The hinge: magnesia is a filter aid, not a flavoringCalcined magnesia (magnesium oxide) is triturated with the oily ginger extract so the essential oils are carried into water rather than floating as a scum. Skip it and the hot water and you get a cloudy, separating syrup; the mixture must be filtered through paper afterward so the magnesia does not stay in the finished product.
- Hub Ginger Ale ExtractA proprietary branded flavoring concentrate; the name points to Boston, but the text says nothing more about its maker or strength, and it is not available now. Any modern ginger ale extract or compounded ginger oleoresin will behave differently in strength, so start well below 11½ ounces per 12 gallons and taste as you scale.
- "American Acid" and "American Sarsaparilla Color"Both are brand-name trade goods rather than generic ingredients, and the text gives neither composition nor strength. Because neither concentration is given, no honest conversion to modern citric acid or caramel color is possible from the text alone.
- Acetic acid strength is unstatedHalf an ounce could mean glacial acetic acid or a dilute solution, and the difference is roughly twentyfold. Glacial acetic acid is corrosive to skin and eyes in the bottle even though it is harmless at the dilution intended here; treat any unlabeled call for "acetic acid" in these books as ambiguous.
- VesselsA No. 10 Wedgwood mortar is a large unglazed mortar of the size druggists used for bulk trituration; a sturdy ceramic bowl and a stiff spatula do the same work. The recipe's dosing implies the "imported ginger ale bottle" held considerably more than the half-pint bottle, and an Apollinaris bottle is the quart mineral-water bottle.
- Sugar and finished volumeFifty pounds of granulated sugar dissolved into 8 gallons of water, plus the lime juice and additions, comes to roughly the 12 gallons the text claims. Dissolve while the water is still hot.
- Dispensing rateHalf an ounce of syrup to a 9-ounce tumbler is one tablespoon, the rest of the glass being carbonated water drawn at the fountain. That is a much leaner syrup-to-water ratio than a modern soda fountain uses, and the drink comes out dry and sharply acidic by current taste.
- Scaling downA tenth batch is 1.15 ounces of extract, 0.2 ounce of magnesia, 5 pounds of sugar, about 12¾ cups of water, and 6½ ounces of lime juice. Refrigerate the finished syrup and use it within a few weeks; nothing here is a preservative except sugar and acid.
"Hub" is Boston — the Hub of the Universe — and this is a house formula built around a branded flavoring extract, of the sort that soda-fountain manuals printed by the hundred at the turn of the twentieth century. Ginger ale itself is generally traced to Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century, where the original style was dark, sweet and heavily gingered; the paler, drier "dry" style that displaced it was a Canadian development of the early 1900s, and a formula like this one, tinted with sarsaparilla color and cut with lime juice and acid, sits between the two. What the entry really documents is the division of labor in the trade: the dispenser bought a proprietary extract rather than grinding his own ginger, and applied the technique — trituration with magnesia, then filtration — that turned a bottle of oily concentrate into twelve gallons of clear syrup.