Home › At the Fountain › Golf Tonic
Golf Tonic
One egg, 1 ounce creme de menthe syrup, ½ ounce lemon syrup, 1 ounce pineapple syrup, 1 dash Jamaica rum, 2 dashes acid solution phosphate. Jamaica rum, 2 dashes acid solution phosphate. Shake, strain, toss and serve.
A fountain egg drink from the era when the drugstore counter competed directly with the saloon. The vocabulary needs translating, but the egg is the reason this one stays on the page rather than in a glass.
- Why it failsThe egg is broken raw into the shaker and never heated, and nothing in the glass will make it safe. A single dash of rum and two dashes of acid phosphate are nowhere near enough alcohol or acid to reduce Salmonella in a whole shell egg, and the drink is served immediately rather than held. If you want a fountain-style egg drink, use a current recipe built on pasteurized shell eggs or pasteurized liquid egg.
- Acid phosphate"Acid solution phosphate" is dilute phosphoric acid with calcium, sodium and magnesium salts, the standard fountain souring agent of the period. It gives a dry mineral tartness without the fruit character of citrus, and it is again sold by a couple of specialty producers.
- A dashAt the fountain a dash was a squirt from a dasher-top bottle; modern convention puts it at about 1/8 teaspoon, though period usage was not standardised. Two dashes of acid phosphate is a seasoning, not an ingredient.
- The syrupsThese are all sweetened fountain syrups, not liqueurs. Creme de menthe syrup is a peppermint syrup, usually coloured green, and essentially non-alcoholic; the Jamaica rum is the only spirit present, and only a dash of it.
- Duplicated lineThe phrase "Jamaica rum, 2 dashes acid solution phosphate" is set twice. That is a compositor's repeat, not a doubled quantity.
- Shake, strain, tossShaken (fountain practice would be over ice, though the recipe does not say so), strained into the glass, then "tossed", which most likely means poured between two vessels to build the foam an egg gives. No soda is called for, which makes this a small, thick, undiluted drink rather than a long one.
Golf took hold in the United States in the 1890s, and by the first decade of the twentieth century its name was being attached to consumer goods of every kind, here a fountain drink. "Tonic" is the other period marker: soda fountains grew out of pharmacies, and egg drinks were commonly promoted as nourishing rather than merely refreshing. Egg was a routine fountain ingredient, whipped for body and foam in phosphates, flips and nogs, and the dispenser's manuals of the era print many such formulas; the practice faded as commercial ice cream, bottled soft drinks and later concerns about raw egg pushed it off the menu.