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Mint Egg Phos
Creme de Menthe Syrup, 2 ounces; Egg, 1; Cracked Ice, ¼ tumblerful; Whipped Cream, 1 ounce. Shake well, fill shaker with fine stream soda, pour in glass and sprinkle with grated nutmeg. There is as much difference between the soda of different stores as between the roast beef of different restaurants.
A fountain drink built on a whole raw egg that never sees heat. The terminology and proportions are worth understanding, but the drink itself belongs to an era before Salmonella Enteritidis was established in the commercial egg supply.
- The raw egg is the problemOne whole shell egg goes into the shaker and is served immediately, cold, with no cooking, no acid soak and no holding time. Shell eggs are a recognised vehicle for Salmonella, and shaking with ice does nothing to reduce it. A current recipe using pasteurised egg should be used instead.
- "Phos" without phosphateThe name promises acid phosphate, the dilute phosphoric acid solution that gave fountain drinks their tart bite, yet none appears in the ingredient list. Either the fountain man was expected to add the standard dash from his own bottle, or the name had drifted loose from its meaning by the time this was printed.
- Creme de menthe syrupNot the liqueur. Fountain syrup was a sugar syrup flavoured with peppermint oil and coloured green, non-alcoholic and far sweeter than a bar bottle of the same name. Two ounces of it is a quarter cup.
- A quarter tumblerful of iceSoda tumblers were not standardised and commonly ran somewhere around 8 to 12 ounces, so this is roughly 2 to 3 ounces of cracked ice by volume, enough to chill and aerate during shaking rather than to fill the glass.
- "Fine stream" sodaFountain draught arms offered a coarse stream and a fine one. The fine stream delivered carbonated water as a fine spray under pressure, which agitated and foamed the egg and cream, while the coarse stream was used for plain filling. A siphon or bottled seltzer poured briskly is the nearest modern equivalent in behaviour.
- NutmegGrated over the top, in the manner of eggnog and milk punch, where it is the conventional finish for egg-based drinks.
Egg drinks were fountain staples from the late nineteenth century through Prohibition, and were often presented as restoratives as much as treats, with the egg promoted as nourishing. Mint versions may have traded on peppermint's long-standing reputation as a stomach settler. The closing aside about roast beef shows this manual's own concern with the quality of a shop's carbonation, a point it evidently thought worth as much as the formula.