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Hot Sherryed Chocolate
One ounce hot chocolate syrup, ⅓ ounce sherry wine, water to fill mug. Finish with whipped cream.
A fountain formula rather than a kitchen one: it assumes a hot-water tap, a syrup pump and an eight-ounce mug on the counter in front of you. Everything scales down neatly to a home mug.
- The measuresFountain ounces are fluid ounces. One ounce of syrup is two tablespoons; a third of an ounce of sherry is two teaspoons, near enough. That ratio is deliberate — the wine is a seasoning, not a spirit measure.
- What fills the mug"Water to fill mug" presumably means hot water; the recipe gives no mug size, so with a common eight-ounce mug that would be something like 6 to 7 ounces of water. Milk makes a richer drink but changes the balance; the original as written is water-based, so the syrup carries all the body.
- Hot chocolate syrupFountain hot chocolate syrup was typically a thick cocoa-and-sugar syrup kept warm at the counter, and would generally have been heavier and sweeter than a modern squeeze-bottle chocolate sauce. If using a commercial sauce, start with a full two tablespoons and taste; if using unsweetened cocoa syrup, expect to sweeten.
- Which sherryAn oloroso or a cream sherry stands up to chocolate; a dry fino largely disappears. Add it to the mug before the hot water rather than after, so the heat carries the aroma up through the drink.
- HeatDo not boil the finished mug. Very hot water is enough to bloom the syrup, and prolonged heat drives off the sherry's aromatics, which are the entire point of the drink.
- The cream"Finish with whipped cream" leaves the sweetening unstated; unsweetened or barely sweetened cream, spooned or piped on top so it floats, suits the drink best, since sweetened cream on top of an already sweet syrup can make the whole thing cloying.
- YieldOne mug, one serving. Multiply directly for more.
Soda fountains ran a winter trade as well as a summer one, and the hot side of the counter — bouillon, hot malted milk, hot chocolate, hot lemonade — kept the marble busy in January. Wine and cordial dashes were a standard part of the fountain dispenser's vocabulary in the era of formula books like this one; a third of an ounce of sherry read as a flavoring gesture in the same family as a dash of vanilla or a spoon of coffee syrup. It is generally noted that American drugstore fountains expanded sharply during Prohibition, when the soda counter took over ground the saloon had held; a drink like this one, with just enough wine in it to be noticed, sits on the edge of that shift.