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Malt Phosphate Syrup
Malt Extract, 12 ounces; Vanilla Syrup, 1 pint; Citric Acid, ½ ounce. Almond Syrup, sufficient to make two pints.
Serve in 8-ounce glass with solid soda.
A fountain syrup meant to be mixed to order, not a finished drink. Everything here is straightforward to source today, but two of the terms are trade language rather than kitchen language.
- "Solid soda"Fountain men distinguished the fine or spray stream, used to foam a drink up, from the solid or coarse stream. Solid soda means filling the glass with plain carbonated water in one steady, full pour so the drink stays clear and sharp rather than heading up.
- How much syrup per glassThe original assumes fountain practice: about 1 to 1½ fluid ounces of syrup in an 8-ounce glass, topped with soda. Two pints of finished syrup therefore serves roughly 20 to 30 drinks.
- Ounces are weight hereMalt extract and citric acid are weighed, the syrups measured by volume. Half an ounce of citric acid is about one level tablespoon of the granular powder, enough to give the drink a distinct tartness.
- Malt extractNon-diastatic liquid malt extract, sold for brewing, is the closest match to what a fountain kept on hand. It is thick and slow; warm the jar in hot water and weigh it straight into the syrup. Diastatic or dry malt powders behave differently and will not dissolve as cleanly.
- Dissolve the acid firstStir the citric acid into a few tablespoons of hot water until fully dissolved before adding it, or you will get gritty crystals settling at the bottom of the bottle and inconsistent tartness from glass to glass.
- "Phosphate" without phosphateA true fountain phosphate got its bite from acid phosphate solution. This formula uses citric acid instead, so it is a phosphate in name and style only. If you have acid phosphate, substituting it gives the rounder, less citrusy sourness the name implies.
- The syrupsVanilla and almond syrup here mean sweetened fountain syrups, not flavouring extracts. If you are making them, a heavy syrup of roughly two parts sugar to one part water flavoured to taste is the right density; using extract in place of syrup will leave the drink thin and barely sweet.
- Keeping itSugar concentration and the acid make this reasonably stable, but refrigerate it and use within a few weeks. Malt extract clouds and can ferment if the syrup is diluted.
Malt was the health note on the American soda fountain. Malt extract had been sold through the late nineteenth century as a strengthening tonic for invalids and children, and malted milk powders reached the market in the 1880s, so a syrup combining malt with the fountain's standard vanilla and almond bases let the dispenser sell something that read as nourishing rather than merely sweet. The "phosphate" in the title points to the other fashion of the era: acid phosphate solution, a dilute phosphoric acid preparation that gave a dry, mineral tartness quite unlike fruit acid and appeared in hundreds of fountain formulas. That this recipe reaches for citric acid instead is typical of dispensing manuals, where a name described the style of drink a customer expected and the formula behind it varied from book to book and counter to counter.