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Hot Lime Juice
One-half ounce lime juice, one ounce lemon or ginger syrup, hot water to fill. Lime juice with lemon or plain syrup or with sugar and hot water may be dispensed as "Hot Limeade."
A soda fountain formula rather than a kitchen recipe: two measured pours into a mug, topped from the hot water tap. The proportions are the whole of it, so the only real decisions are the strength of the syrup and the size of the glass.
- The measures are fluid ouncesHalf a fluid ounce of lime juice is one tablespoon; one ounce of syrup is two tablespoons. The book does not say what size vessel "hot water to fill" means, so the strength of the finished drink is left to the dispenser.
- Fountain syrup is not simple syrupTrade syrups of this period were generally much heavier than a modern 1:1 simple syrup, and a lemon or ginger syrup would have been that sweet base carrying the flavouring. A 1:1 syrup will taste thin here; use a heavier syrup or accept a less sweet drink.
- Lime juice meant bottled juiceLime juice here probably meant preserved bottled juice, unsweetened, which is what a fountain would have had on hand; the book does not specify. Fresh-squeezed lime works and tastes brighter -- start at the half ounce and adjust.
- Water temperatureThe book says only hot water. Hot but not fiercely boiling water suits citrus and ginger; let a boiled kettle stand a minute.
- Order of assemblyPut the syrup and juice in the mug first and pour the hot water onto them, so the drink mixes as it fills; the book does not specify an order.
- The ginger version is the more interesting oneGinger syrup with hot water and lime is essentially a hot ginger-limeade and stands up far better to heat than lemon, which goes dull. If you have both, make the ginger.
- YieldOne drink. Scaled up for a pitcher, work in the same ratio: 4 oz lime juice and 8 oz syrup to about 3 pints of hot water.
American soda fountains were not a summer-only business; proprietors who had invested in marble, nickel plate and a good location wanted winter trade, and one answer was a hot water urn beside the carbonator and a list of hot drinks using the syrups already on hand. Hot lime juice, hot lemonade, hot ginger and beef tea appear together in fountain manuals, sold as much for a cold in the head as for pleasure -- hot citrus and ginger were common domestic remedies for chill and sore throat, and the drugstore fountain sat between the prescription counter and the street. Lime juice reached the American market largely through the West Indian trade and through the British naval and merchant-marine practice of provisioning ships with preserved juice against scurvy, which is part of why the bottled, shelf-stable article was familiar to a soda clerk.