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Grape Punch
Into a 12-ounce glass, 2 ounces plain syrup, fill glass half full fine shaved ice, 3 ounces "Welch's" grape juice, fill glass with carbonated water, stir and top off with slice pineapple or orange.
A soda-fountain formula, written for a counterman working by volume with a scoop of shaved ice at hand. It scales to one tall drink and needs almost nothing translated except the syrup.
- Plain syrupFountain "plain syrup" or "simple syrup" of this era was heavy; period fountain manuals commonly run something on the order of two parts granulated sugar to one of water, boiled and cooled. Modern equal-parts syrup is much thinner, so 2 ounces of it will leave the drink noticeably tart against the grape juice.
- MeasurementsAll the ounces here are fluid ounces, not weight. Two ounces is a quarter cup, three ounces a bit over a third of a cup; the finished drink fills the 12-ounce glass including melt.
- Shaved iceShaved or finely cracked ice, filling the glass halfway, is doing two jobs — chilling and diluting. Cubes will not dilute at the same rate, so the drink comes out sweeter and stronger; if you use cubes, expect to add a little more carbonated water.
- Welch's grape juiceThe brand still exists and the product is much the same: unfermented Concord grape juice. Any Concord juice works. Note that Concord is a distinctly foxy, musky grape — European-style grape juices taste nothing like the drink intended here.
- Carbonated waterFountain carbonated water was generally charged harder than most bottled club soda. Use the coldest, most aggressively carbonated seltzer you can get and pour down the side of the glass to keep the fizz.
- StirringStir once, gently, from the bottom. The syrup sinks and needs lifting, but working the spoon through carbonated water flattens the drink quickly.
- The garnishA slice of pineapple at a fountain of this period could be a ring from a can or cut fresh; canned pineapple was becoming cheap and widely stocked. Either works, as does the orange wheel.
- YieldOne 12-ounce glass. Multiplying is straightforward, but build each glass separately rather than batching, or the carbonation is lost before service.
Fountain manuals like this one existed because soda counters needed a standardized repertoire that any clerk could execute in seconds from bottled and canned stock. Welch's was built on the idea of unfermented "grape juice" for temperance advocates, and the product is generally traced to their interest in a non-alcoholic communion wine — which made it a natural fit for the drugstore fountain, itself often a self-consciously dry alternative to the saloon. Calling the drink a "punch" is part of that: fountain punches borrowed the name, the tall glass, and the fruit garnish from alcoholic punch while containing nothing but syrup, juice, ice and charged water. The pineapple slice on top tells you the period as clearly as anything — canned Hawaiian pineapple had become an inexpensive staple by the 1910s and was a common fountain garnish.