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Mint Bracer
Two-thirds glass shaved ice, 1 ounce sweet mint syrup, 1 ounce grape juice, slice of orange and sprig of mint. Draw full of soda, solid, stir gently. "Mint Cocoa."
Use shaker ⅓ full cracked ice. Add 1 ounce creme de menthe syrup, 1 ounce chocolate syrup, 2 ounces plain cream, and white of 1 egg. Shake. Fill shaker with carbonated water; strain into glass. Serve in 12-ounce glass with straws.
Two separate fountain drinks have run together in this entry: a Mint Bracer built in the glass, and a shaken Mint Cocoa. Read the sentence beginning "Use shaker" as the start of the second recipe.
- Syrups are fountain syrups, not liqueurs"Creme de menthe syrup" was a non-alcoholic peppermint syrup coloured green, sold to dispensers alongside the sweet mint syrup called for in the first drink. Substituting actual crème de menthe liqueur changes the drink entirely; a mint simple syrup is the closer match.
- "Draw full of soda, solid"Fountain taps had a coarse ("solid") stream and a fine spray. Solid means a heavy, low-agitation pour that preserves carbonation. With a siphon or bottled soda, pour down the inside of the glass in one steady stream rather than splashing.
- Grape juiceAlmost certainly unfermented grape juice, thick and sweet, of the sort sold to fountains in the temperance decades; Concord is the likely type though the recipe does not say so. Modern Concord juice is the closest match; white grape juice will taste thin and read as apple.
- Plain creamUnwhipped sweet cream, not whipped cream; something in the range of modern light or table cream rather than heavy cream, which makes the Mint Cocoa cloying once shaken. Half-and-half is the practical stand-in.
- Raw egg whiteThe white gives the shaken drink its foam collar and is never heated. Use a pasteurized egg or carton egg white if serving to children, older guests, or anyone pregnant or immune-compromised.
- Shaking orderShake the ice, syrups, cream and white together first, then add carbonated water to the shaker and strain immediately. Carbonation shaken hard is largely lost, so this second addition is a quick fold rather than another shake.
- Typographical note"I ounce chocolate syrup" is a compositor's error for 1 ounce.
- Glassware and yieldEach formula makes one drink. No glass size is given for the Mint Bracer, only that the ice fills two-thirds of it and soda is drawn to fill; the Mint Cocoa is specified for a 12-ounce glass with straws.
Soda fountain manuals like this one were trade books, written for the dispenser behind the marble counter rather than the home cook, which is why the instructions assume a shaved-ice bin, a two-stream carbonated water tap and a rack of proprietary syrups. The vocabulary is telling: "bracer" borrowed the saloon's word for a stimulating drink, and "crème de menthe syrup" borrowed the name of a liqueur for a product containing no alcohol at all. That borrowing suited an era of expanding temperance sentiment and, later, national Prohibition, when druggists' fountains took up much of the trade and much of the showmanship that saloons had lost. Mint and chocolate together, shaken with cream and an egg white, belong to the same fountain tradition that produced the egg cream and the frappe — drinks whose appeal was as much texture as flavour.