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Hokie Pokie Glace
One ounce ordinary syrup, ½ ounce pure cream, 1 dash extract nectar, ¾ glass plain soda, drawn in fine stream; shaved ice to fill glass. Serve with whipped cream and spoon.
A fountain formula rather than a kitchen recipe: it assumes a soda draft arm, a siphon or carbonator, and a stock of flavoring extracts. All of it translates to a home bar with bottled seltzer and a little planning.
- The measuresOunces here are fluid ounces, dispensed with a fountain jigger — 1 oz syrup is 2 tablespoons, ½ oz cream is 1 tablespoon. Fountain glasses of the period varied, commonly somewhere between 8 and 12 oz, so ¾ glass of soda is roughly 6 to 9 oz.
- Ordinary syrupFountain "plain" or "ordinary" syrup was simple syrup made heavy, on the order of two parts sugar to one part water, so that a single ounce could sweeten a whole glass. Standard 1:1 simple syrup will taste thin at this dose; use a bit more, or make it heavy.
- Extract nectarA proprietary fountain flavoring, not a fruit nectar. Published nectar formulas vary, but many combine almond and vanilla with a fruit note such as peach or pineapple. A drop or two of almond extract with a smaller drop of vanilla gets close; there is no exact modern equivalent.
- Drawn in fine streamThe soda arm had coarse and fine outlets. The fine stream aerates the syrup and cream into a light foam instead of punching a hole through it — pour the seltzer slowly down the side against the mixed base, not straight in.
- Plain sodaUnflavored carbonated water. Bottled seltzer works if it is cold and freshly opened; the drink depends entirely on live carbonation, so nothing flat will do.
- Cream and ice orderCombine syrup, cream and extract first and stir, then add soda, then fill with shaved ice. Cream dropped onto ice or into a full glass streaks rather than emulsifies.
- Shaved iceShaved, not cubed — it chills instantly and gives the slushy body the name implies. A blender pulse or a canvas bag and a mallet will produce it; cubes leave the drink thin and warm at the top.
- Yield and servingOne glass. Crown with whipped cream and serve with a long spoon immediately; it separates as the ice melts.
"Hokey pokey" was the nineteenth-century street name for cheap ice cream sold from carts, associated in both Britain and the United States with Italian vendors; the phrase is often traced, on traditional rather than documented grounds, to an Italian street cry, and the derivation should be treated as folklore. Here the name attaches itself to a cold, creamy, ice-filled fountain drink — with glacé simply marking it as iced. The recipe is characteristic of fountain writing of the era: quantities in ounces and fractions of a glass, a proprietary extract standing in for a flavor profile the dispenser was expected to have on the shelf, and the whole thing built to be assembled at a marble counter while the customer watched.