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Mint Frappe
One-half ounce orange syrup, ½ ounce ginger ale, ½ ounce grape syrup, ½ ounce pineapple syrup, 2 dashes acid phosphate, 4 fresh mint leaves, ½ syrup, 2 dashes acid phosphate, 4 fresh mint leaves, ½ glass shaved ice. Press the mint to the sides of the glass, then add the soda in a coarse stream to fill the glass. Stir and serve with straws. Decorate with fresh mint.
A fountain drink built in the glass rather than shaken, and it assumes a soda dispenser and a bar full of house syrups. Everything here has a modern equivalent.
- The text repeats itselfThe line "½ syrup, 2 dashes acid phosphate, 4 fresh mint leaves" appears to be a compositor's duplication of the phrase before it; the stray "½ syrup" has lost whatever fruit it belonged to. Build the drink once: the three named syrups and the ginger ale, two dashes of phosphate, four mint leaves.
- Acid phosphateA dilute solution of phosphoric acid with calcium, magnesium and potassium salts, a fountain staple for its dry, sour bite without citrus flavour. It disappeared for most of the twentieth century but is made again for the cocktail trade; a dash is roughly 1/8 teaspoon. Lemon juice is not a substitute, since it brings flavour the drink was designed to avoid.
- The syrupsFountain syrups were heavy, often approaching two parts sugar to one of water, far denser than modern bottled cordials, and orange, grape and pineapple were commonly fruit syrups rather than the candy-flavoured products sold now. If you use thinner commercial syrups the drink will read watery.
- Ginger ale here is an ingredientAn ounce and a half of bottled ginger ale goes in as flavouring. The bulk of the liquid is the "soda" added at the end, meaning plain carbonated water from the fountain.
- Shaved ice, not cubesHalf a glass of shaved or finely crushed ice is what makes it a frappe. Cubes will not chill fast enough or give the slushy texture the name promises.
- "A coarse stream"Fountain draft arms had a fine stream for delicate work and a coarse stream for volume and agitation. Pour your soda water hard from a siphon or bottle so it mixes the syrups on the way in.
- Pressing the mintPress, do not muddle to a pulp. Mint pulverised rather than bruised is generally held to turn grassy and bitter; a firm press against the glass wall bruises the leaves enough to give the oil.
- Glass and yieldFountain glasses of the period commonly ran somewhere in the 8 to 12 ounce range. One drink, and it should be handed over the counter immediately, before the shaved ice slumps.
The soda fountain worked from a syrup rail much as a cocktail bar works from a speed rail, and drinks like this one were assembled to a formula. Acid phosphate is the tell: it was the fountain's answer to the sour element in a mixed drink, giving tartness and a certain mineral roundness without adding a fruit flavour that would fight the syrups. Frappes were distinguished from a plain soda by the bed of shaved ice and from an ice-cream soda by the absence of cream. Drinks combining mint with fruit syrups were often sold as a temperance echo of the julep and the smash, which is the connection most frequently drawn though the fountain trade rarely said so in print.