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Lemon Syrup (Lemons juice and grated peel)
Lemons, juice and grated peel of, 12; American Fruit Acid, 2 ounces; Sugar, ½ lb.; Syrup, 1½ gallons. Grate the peel of the lemons, rub in a mortar with ½ pound sugar and the fruit acid. Add the juice and let stand two hours. Strain through a cloth and wash with the syrup by straining through the same cloth. Agitate thoroughly.
A soda-fountain bulk syrup, written for a druggist working in gallons. The technique underneath it is oleo-saccharum t to draw the peel oil into sugar t and it is the reason this tastes of lemon rather than of citric acid.
- Scale it downAs written this makes over 1.5 gallons, roughly 200 fluid ounces, or about 150 drinks at the fountain rate of 1 to 1.5 ounces per glass. Divide by eight for a household batch: 1½ lemons, 1 oz sugar, and 3 cups of syrup.
- "Syrup" means plain simple syrupIn fountain books this normally means the house stock syrup, sugar dissolved in water at close to saturation, on the order of 2 lb sugar per pint of water, about 65 Brix. It is not maple, corn or cane syrup. The ½ lb of sugar in the recipe is separate, and serves mainly as an abrasive to grind the peel.
- American Fruit AcidA proprietary tartness preparation of the period, generally citric or tartaric acid. Because the strength is unknowable, 2 ounces cannot be converted honestly; start with a teaspoon of citric acid powder in a scaled-down batch and taste, since twelve lemons already carry plenty of acid.
- The hinge: rub, then waitGrinding the zest with sugar and letting the mixture stand draws the essential oil out of the peel into a fragrant slurry. Skipping or shortening the two-hour rest gives you sour sugar water with no aroma. A bowl and the back of a spoon will do the work of the mortar.
- Grate only the yellowAny white pith carried into the mortar turns bitter in a syrup that will sit for weeks. Use a rasp grater and stop at the color line.
- "Wash with the syrup"After straining the lemon slurry, pour the plain syrup through the same cloth to rinse the trapped oil and sugar through with it. It is a rinse, not a second extraction, and it is why the syrup is added last rather than cooked with the fruit.
- KeepingThere is no preservative here beyond sugar and acid. Bottle it, refrigerate, and use within a month; watch for cloudiness or fermentation, since a syrup this dilute at the fruit end will not keep at room temperature.
- ServingAbout 1 to 1.5 ounces of syrup to a glass of cold soda water, stirred rather than shaken. It also stands in for lemonade at roughly one part syrup to six parts still water.
Lemon was the foundation flavor of the American soda fountain, often said to be the one syrup a dispenser could not be without, and manuals of the 1890s and 1900s print many versions of it t some honest with fruit, some built entirely from tartaric acid and oil of lemon. This one sits in the middle: real peel and juice for aroma, plus a bought "fruit acid" to guarantee a consistent bite from a batch of lemons that might be thin or tired. Such preparations were sold by the drug wholesalers who also supplied the fountains, and their vagueness on strength is exactly the sort of thing pure food legislation would press on. The peel-and-sugar rub, meanwhile, is far older than soda water; the same trick underpins punch as it was made in the eighteenth century, where sugar is used to strip the oil from citrus rind before any liquid goes near it.