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Ginger Ale To Charge in a Portable Fountain
Place in a suitable fountain 11½ gallons of any ginger ale syrup and water enough to make 10 gallons, and charge with gas to a pressure of 100 pounds. To be drawn from the apparatus in the manner of soda water, but without syrup. The beverage can be dispensed more readily from a beer pitcher (made to draw from the bottom), by use of which the tumbler is partially filled with solid beverage, and the remainder drawn directly into the tumbler.
This is a bulk-dispensing instruction rather than a kitchen recipe: pre-mixed ginger ale carbonated in a pressure vessel and drawn like plain soda water. The figures as printed do not add up, and the working pressure is the part that matters most.
- The arithmetic is wrongYou cannot put 11½ gallons of syrup into a 10-gallon batch. A ratio of roughly one part syrup to five or six parts water would be in line with fountain proportions generally, which would make 1½ gallons of syrup topped up to 10 gallons the likely intended reading. Best treated as a probable typesetting error rather than a formula.
- 100 pounds is charging pressure, not serving pressureThat figure is the pressure used to force carbon dioxide into the liquid, and only a vessel rated for it should ever see it. A modern stainless soda keg with a working pressure around 130 psi and a functioning pressure relief valve is the only sane equivalent; anything improvised, glass, or of unknown provenance is not.
- Carbonate coldThe recipe gives no temperature at all. Carbon dioxide dissolves far better near freezing, so chill the mix to 34-38F before charging or you will need more gas, more time, and you will still get a flat drink.
- Serve at 10-15 psiOnce carbonated, drop the regulator well down for dispensing. Pouring a fully charged mix through a tap at anything like charging pressure gives you a glass of foam and a puddle.
- "Solid beverage"An old fountain term for liquid without foam. The bottom-draw pitcher exists for exactly this reason: it delivers the settled liquid first so the tumbler is part-filled without head, and the rest is drawn straight from the tap.
- Ginger ale syrupThe period syrup was sugar, water, ginger extract or tincture, usually capsicum and lemon or lime oil, and often caramel for colour. Any modern ginger syrup will work, but bear in mind commercial concentrates today are frequently built for a 1:5 dilution already and taste thin at fountain proportions.
- Scaling downTen gallons is a festival batch. The proportions hold at any size: for a 5-gallon corny keg, about 3 quarts of syrup and water to fill.
- No syrup at the tapThe instruction "without syrup" distinguishes this from ordinary fountain service, where the operator pumped syrup into the glass and hit it with plain carbonated water. Here the flavour is already in the tank, so the drink is uniform from first glass to last.
Ginger ale was also something a fountain operator made by the barrel. This entry belongs to the era when soda water was dispensed from charged vessels rather than pre-packaged, and the "portable fountain" was a wheeled or carried pressure tank taken to places where no fixed marble counter existed. American ginger ale of this period was the golden style descended from the Irish and Belfast ginger ales, sweetened and coloured with caramel and given its bite by ginger tincture reinforced with capsicum. Charging a whole tank with the flavour already mixed in, rather than dosing each glass with syrup, was the labour-saving move: one man with a bottom-draw pitcher could serve a crowd without measuring anything.