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Milk Shake, Vanilla
Fill the tumbler half full of rich milk (if cream is added, it makes a great improvement); to this add 2 or 3 teaspoonfuls of sugar. Shake in a few drops of American vanilla extract. Fill tumbler nearly full of finely broken ice. Shake vigorously until the ice is melted, draw in some soda water, place a long-handled spoon in the tumbler, and strain or serve with 2 straws. Remember that women like a little more syrup and three times as much foam and froth as men like. Never overflow a glass.
A soda-fountain milk shake from before ice cream entered the glass: this is milk, sugar, vanilla, ice and carbonated water, shaken by hand until the ice is gone. Treat it as a cold, frothy vanilla soda rather than a thick shake.
- The tumblerNo size is given; fountain tumblers of the period were commonly somewhere around 8 to 12 oz, which would make the half-fill of milk roughly 4 to 6 oz. A cocktail shaker or a lidded jar does the job the fountain man's shaking cup did.
- No ice creamNothing is frozen here and nothing thickens. Shaking until the ice has melted deliberately dilutes and chills the milk; the body comes from foam, not from fat. Adding ice cream turns it into a modern shake, which is a different drink.
- Rich milk and cream"Rich milk" meant whole milk of the period, before homogenisation was general. Whole milk works; the recipe leaves the amount of cream open, calling it simply "a great improvement."
- Sugar versus syrupGranulated sugar may not dissolve completely in a cold shake; simple syrup, 2 to 3 teaspoons or a little more to taste, is an easy substitute, and the closing line about "a little more syrup" suggests syrup was the usual fountain form.
- American vanilla extract"American" here most likely marks domestic extract, though the recipe does not explain the term. A scant quarter teaspoon of pure vanilla extract is a reasonable modern reading of "a few drops."
- Finely broken iceCracked or crushed ice, not cubes. Coarse ice will not melt in the time you can shake by hand and you will end up with cold milk rather than a shake.
- The soda waterDraw it in after shaking and stir it in gently with the long-handled spoon, since carbonation will not survive the shaker. The recipe gives no quantity; add enough to fill without overflowing, as the last line insists.
- YieldOne glass, served straight away with two straws, as the recipe directs; the froth will subside, so it is not a drink to make ahead.
The American Soda Book belongs to the trade literature written for the men behind drugstore fountains, where carbonated water was still sold partly as a health article and partly as a treat. In the late nineteenth century a "milk shake" could mean what is described here — milk, flavouring syrup, ice and soda, shaken to a froth in a metal cup and strained into the glass — though the term was also applied to quite different drinks, some of them spirituous. The thick ice-cream version most people picture now spread later, generally traced to the arrival of the electric drink mixer in the early twentieth century. The aside about what women and men supposedly prefer, and the instruction never to overflow a glass, are reminders that these books were training manuals for a service job as much as collections of formulas: the dispenser was expected to read his customer and to keep the marble counter dry.