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Lemon Syrup (To quart American Lemon Juice)
To 1 quart American Lemon Juice add 5 quarts simple syrup. Mix thoroughly, and add 1 ounce American Sicilian Lemon Extract. AJAX 18 17 SIMPLEX ROTARY LEMON SQUEEZERS.
See our Catalog of "American Soda Supplies."
Beginners are advised to stick close to the popular and well established flavors - Vanilla, Chocolate, Lemon, Strawberry, Pineapple, Raspberry, Orange and Sarsaparilla.
A fountain formula rather than a household one: it makes roughly a gallon and a half of finished syrup, in proportions meant for a dispenser rather than a kitchen shelf. The whole thing scales down cleanly if you work in the ratio.
- The ratio is the recipeOne part lemon juice to five parts simple syrup, with the extract at about 1 ounce per six quarts of finished syrup. At a domestic scale that is 1/2 cup juice, 2 1/2 cups syrup and about 3/4 teaspoon lemon extract.
- Fountain simple syrup is not bar simple syrupTrade "simple syrup" of this period was a heavy, close to saturated syrup, boiled and strained, considerably sweeter than a modern 1:1 syrup, which will give a noticeably thinner, less sweet result that dilutes badly against carbonated water.
- "American Lemon Juice" and "American Sicilian Lemon Extract"Both read as proprietary lines of the supply house that issued the book rather than generic descriptions. Substitute fresh strained lemon juice and a good alcohol-based lemon extract; "Sicilian" indicated oil from Sicilian lemons, then regarded as the standard for quality.
- Strain the juiceThe original assumes a bottled, filtered product. Fresh juice should be strained through fine mesh or muslin, since pulp settles in the pump jar and sours faster than the syrup around it.
- Add the extract last and coldLemon oil is volatile and the extract carries it in alcohol. Stirring it into hot syrup drives off the top notes and leaves a flat, candied flavour.
- KeepingThere is no preservative here and no heat treatment after the juice goes in. Refrigerate and use within a week or two; a cloudy cast or a fermented smell means it has gone.
- ServingFountain practice was about 1 to 1 1/2 fluid ounces of syrup in a glass, filled with carbonated water and drawn on a coarse stream to mix. The full batch as written yields six quarts, or roughly 130 to 190 glasses.
- Ignore the middle of the entryThe "AJAX 18 17 SIMPLEX ROTARY LEMON SQUEEZERS" line and the catalog reference are advertising set into the text block, not instructions. The closing list of flavours is the publisher's advice to new operators.
Books like this one were published by soda-fountain supply houses as much to sell goods as to teach the trade: the formulas are sound, but every branded ingredient in them could be ordered from the same firm's catalog, and the apparatus notices are dropped straight into the text. Lemon was among the earliest of the fountain flavours, and it survived as the backbone of both plain lemon soda and the lemon phosphate. The advice to beginners at the end suggests what an American fountain leaned on around the turn of the twentieth century: vanilla, chocolate, lemon, strawberry, pineapple, raspberry, orange and sarsaparilla, with the more elaborate formulas filling the rest of the book.