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Hot Scotch
One ounce hot Scotch syrup, add hot water, stirring constantly. Top off with cream. To make the hot Scotch syrup, take 4 ounces soluble essence , take 4 ounces soluble essence of ginger, ¼ ounce soluble extract of capsicum , 1 dram soluble extract of gentian, 3 drams essence of orange peel, 20 ounces lemon syrup, ½ ounce caramel coloring. Mix thoroughly and keep in a syrup bottle.
This is a temperance-era fountain drink: a hot, spirit-free imitation of Scotch toddy built from pharmacy flavouring extracts. The text as printed is corrupt in two places, and one of those places is the most pungent ingredient in the formula.
- An ingredient is missing entirelyThe syrup begins "take 4 ounces soluble essence , take 4 ounces soluble essence of ginger" — the first phrase names no flavour at all, apparently a printer's or scanner's duplication. There is no way to know whether the formula wanted one essence or two, or what the first one was.
- The capsicum quantity is out of range"14 ounce soluble extract of capsicum" against 20 ounces of lemon syrup cannot be right; it is most likely a mangled ¼ ounce. Soluble extract of capsicum as sold to the trade was a preparation made from oleoresin of capsicum, and at anything near 14 ounces the resulting syrup would be an irritant rather than a drink. Because the intended figure is a guess, the syrup should not be mixed from this text.
- What the extracts actually wereThese are not grocery flavourings. "Soluble" essences and extracts were alcohol-and-glycerin preparations supplied to the drug trade or compounded by druggists, at strengths this recipe does not state; a modern bottle labelled "ginger extract" or "orange extract" is likely a different and weaker thing.
- Gentian and the dramA fluid dram is about a teaspoon, so 1 dram of gentian extract and 3 drams of orange peel essence are small corrective touches. Gentian is the bitter root behind gentian bitters and remains a permitted flavouring, but soluble extract of gentian is not a domestic item.
- No Scotch in the Hot ScotchNo spirit is called for as such; the only alcohol present is the small amount carried in the soluble essences. The ginger and capsicum supply the burn of whisky and the caramel colouring supplies the look; the name describes the impression, not the contents.
- If you want the drinkUse a current recipe for a hot ginger syrup or a non-alcoholic toddy, where the pepper component is specified in a form and quantity that can be verified.
Soda fountain trade fell away in winter, and one answer was a counter of hot drinks served from the same syrup bottles as the summer sodas: hot chocolate, hot ginger, beef tea, and imitations of the bar-room toddy such as this one. "Hot Scotch" borrowed the name and the sensation of Scotch whisky and hot water, and delivered them with ginger for heat, capsicum for the catch in the throat, gentian for the bitter finish and caramel for the colour — a formula that reads more like a druggist's prescription than a bartender's, and the fountain was frequently run from a drugstore. Manuals of this kind circulated from the 1890s through Prohibition, when the drugstore counter took on a share of the saloon's winter custom, and they assume the reader has soluble essences on the back shelf and knows what strength they came in.