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Lemon
Lemonade is, of course, best when the fruit is squeezed into the glass, powdered sugar and hot water added, and the whole shaken well in shaker but when this is not possible, lemon juice previously prepared is the best substitute. Two ounces American Lemon Juice (from bottle), 2 teaspoonfuls sugar. Add hot water from draft tube, and stir with a spoon. Top with American Regal Ground Spices.
This is a single serving of hot lemonade as it was drawn at a soda fountain, where a steam-heated draft tube gave near-boiling water on demand. Everything here scales to one mug.
- Two ounces of juiceTwo fluid ounces is 1/4 cup, roughly the yield of one and a half large lemons. Fresh juice is what the first sentence recommends and it is worth following.
- The draft tubeA fountain's hot-water draft tube drew steam-heated water, hot but generally short of a rolling boil; the book gives no temperature. Water taken off the boil and rested a moment will do.
- Powdered sugarThe shaken version also takes hot water; powdered sugar simply dissolves faster than granulated. Granulated will dissolve in the hot drink, and two teaspoons is modest -- taste and adjust.
- American Lemon Juice, bottledA named branded product called for by the book. Any bottled lemon juice stands in, though bottled juice tends to taste flatter than fresh; start with a little less.
- American Regal Ground SpicesA proprietary named spice product, no longer sold; the book does not say what was in it. A light dusting of cinnamon and nutmeg gives a plausible effect.
- Glass size and finishingFinishing -- The recipe gives no glass size or water quantity. Fill with hot water to taste, stir until the sugar is gone, then dust the spice on the surface so it stays visible rather than sinking.
Soda fountains were a summer business, and hot drinks helped sustain them through the colder months. Hot lemonade, hot beef tea, hot chocolate and hot malted milk all appear in fountain manuals of the early twentieth century under headings like "winter drinks," and hot lemonade in particular carried a reputation as a remedy for chills and colds — a household use for lemon and hot water that long predates the fountain and is still traditional rather than medical. The named products here, the bottled American Lemon Juice and the Regal ground spices, reflect the other thing this kind of book was for: these dispensers' guides were often published or underwritten by the supply houses whose brands appear in the formulas, so the recipe doubles as a reminder of what to order.