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Ginger Syrup
American Concentrated Ginger Syrup, 1 quart; Plain Syrup, 3 quarts. Mix well.
A soda fountain formula rather than a kitchen recipe: two prepared stocks combined in a 1:3 ratio to make a gallon of dispensing syrup. Everything depends on what those two stocks actually were.
- Plain syrupFountain "plain syrup" (also called simple or stock syrup) was a heavy sugar syrup, close to saturation and considerably denser than a modern bar syrup. That density is what let a single ounce or so flavor a whole glass of carbonated water without going thin and watery.
- "American Concentrated Ginger Syrup"This appears to be a trade product bought in by the drug store rather than something the operator made: a strong sweetened ginger extract, probably built on an alcoholic tincture or fluid extract of Jamaica ginger. No modern equivalent is sold under that name.
- SubstitutingA strong homemade ginger syrup — fresh grated ginger steeped in hot heavy syrup, strained, then reinforced to taste — stands in, but the 1:3 dilution here assumes a commercial concentrate far stronger than a domestic infusion. Dilute to taste rather than by the stated ratio.
- UnitsQuarts and gallons here are US measure: the batch is 4 quarts, one gallon, about 3.8 liters.
- YieldAt the usual fountain draw of 1 to 1½ fl oz of syrup per glass, a gallon makes roughly 85 to 125 drinks.
- ServingPresumably drawn into a glass and filled with carbonated water rather than stirred into still water. Ginger syrups of this type were also used over shaved ice and to flavor milk shakes and phosphates.
- KeepingA syrup this sugar-heavy resists spoilage at room temperature. A weaker homemade version needs refrigeration and may mold within a few weeks.
- The point of mixing at allConcentrate could be shipped and stored in small volume, then cut with cheap house syrup on the premises.
Ginger was one of the founding flavors of the American soda fountain, and it arrived there by way of the pharmacy rather than the confectioner. Fluid extract and tincture of ginger were stock drug-store items, sold as a stomachic and carminative, so a druggist adding a carbonating apparatus to his shop already had the flavoring on the shelf; ginger ale and ginger soda were sold with at least a nod toward digestive benefit well into the twentieth century. "Jamaica ginger" became a trade term for the extract itself, functioning as a quality designation rather than a statement about where the root had grown. Formula books like this one exist because the fountain trade ran on bought-in proprietary concentrates: the publisher's job was to tell the operator how much house syrup to cut each one with, which is why so many entries amount to two lines and a ratio.