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Mint Freeze (Dilute gallon of American)
Dilute 1 gallon of American Creme de Menthe Concentrated Syrup with 3 gallons plain syrup. Draw an ounce of this creme de menthe syrup in a phosphate or cocktail glass, add a little cracked ice, draw solid soda to fill the glass , stir with a spoon and stick an American Creme de Menthe Cherry on a toothpick and drop in the glass, also add a thin slice of lemon as a garnish; serve with a straw. There is nothing colder or more refreshing than flavor of creme de menthe. A little slice of lemon makes a pleasing tart, and a creme de menthe cherry gives it the finishing touch which makes it perfect.
A fountain formula written for a shop that sold hundreds of glasses a day, so the first job is scaling it down. Once you have the syrup at working strength the drink itself takes under a minute.
- Scale the syrupThe 1:3 ratio is what matters, not the gallons: one part concentrated crème de menthe syrup to three parts plain syrup. Two ounces of concentrate to six ounces of plain syrup gives you eight servings.
- "Plain syrup" means simple syrupAt the fountain this was the house stock syrup, generally heavier than the thin simple syrup most bars use now, though formulas varied from shop to shop. Make it as you would any simple syrup, cool completely before blending, and keep it refrigerated.
- Crème de menthe here is a syrup, not a liqueurThe concentrate sold under that name was a non-alcoholic green mint flavoring syrup. If you substitute the liqueur you are making an entirely different, alcoholic drink; peppermint extract plus a little green color in simple syrup is closer to the original intent.
- "Solid soda" is a fountain termIt means carbonated water drawn in a heavy stream from the coarse tap, filling the glass with liquid rather than the foamy fine stream used to build a head. Modern equivalent: pour chilled seltzer down the side of the glass so it stays dense and cold.
- Glass sizeA phosphate or cocktail glass at a 1900s fountain held about 8 ounces. One ounce of syrup to roughly seven of soda is a lighter hand than most people expect from mint drinks.
- Cracked ice, not cubesCracked ice chills faster and lets the syrup and soda mix without vigorous stirring, which drives off carbonation. Stir once, gently, and stop.
- The cherryAn "American Creme de Menthe Cherry" was a branded mint-flavoured cocktail cherry sold to fountains under the same house name as the syrup. Any cocktail cherry works; the point is a contrasting sweet bite at the bottom of the glass.
- YieldThe full formula as printed makes four gallons of finished syrup, about 500 drinks. Mix a cup and you have plenty.
Books like this one were trade literature: flavor and syrup houses published them to teach soda clerks how to turn the company's concentrates into a long menu of drinks, which is why nearly every ingredient here is a brand name in disguise. Crème de menthe syrup was a useful item on a fountain shelf in the first decades of the twentieth century, because it delivered a color and a flavor that read as sophisticated and European while containing no alcohol at all. The soda fountain of this era was a serious commercial kitchen with its own vocabulary, and much of that vocabulary survives only in manuals of this kind: coarse and fine streams, plain syrup drawn from a pump, drinks specified by the glass they were built in rather than by volume. The little slice of lemon, cited here for its tartness, does the same work that a squeeze of acid phosphate did in the fountain's other drinks, keeping heavy sugar from tasting flat.