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Mint Julep
Creme de Menthe Syrup, 1 ounce; Acid Phos from squirter, 1 dash; Shaved Ice, ½ tumblerful; Whisky, 1 tablespoonful. Slice of orange; solid soda to fill glass; top with sprig of mint and a creme de menthe cherry. "Mint Lemonade."
Add to your regular formula for lemonade, 1 to 2 ounces creme de menthe syrup. Strain into glass. Trim with slice of fruit and fresh mint and a Strain into glass. Trim with slice of fruit and fresh mint and a creme de menthe cherry. Serve in 12-ounce glass with straws. With thousands of customers soda water is apt to taste as the fountain looks.
A soda-fountain drink built in the glass, not a bourbon julep. The printed text runs two formulas together and repeats a line of type, so read the julep as ending at the crème de menthe cherry; "Mint Lemonade" is a separate variation and the 12-ounce glass and straws apply to both.
- Crème de menthe syrupThis is a non-alcoholic green mint syrup sold to fountains, not the liqueur. A good peppermint syrup, or mint simple syrup tinted or left clear, does the same job; if you substitute the liqueur you will roughly double the alcohol in the glass.
- Acid phosphateA dilute phosphoric acid solution with calcium, magnesium and potassium salts, kept at the fountain in a squirter bottle. It gives a clean sourness with none of the citrus flavour of lemon. It is still made for cocktail and soda use; a dash is about a quarter teaspoon.
- Solid sodaCarbonated water drawn from the coarse stream, filling the glass with liquid rather than the foamy "fine stream" used to build head. Modern equivalent: chilled seltzer poured down the side of the glass.
- Shaved iceGenuinely shaved, not cubed. Half a tumbler of shaved ice chills and dilutes far faster than cubes, which is what makes the drink read as a julep rather than a highball.
- The whiskyOne tablespoon is half an ounce, a token measure by cocktail standards. The drink is essentially a mint soda with a whisky accent.
- Crème de menthe cherryA cherry steeped in green mint syrup, sold alongside maraschino cherries for fountain trim. Steep drained maraschinos in mint syrup overnight if you want the effect.
- Glass and yieldOne drink served with straws; the text specifies a 12-ounce glass, though that line follows the Mint Lemonade variation. If the tumbler referenced for the ice is that same glass, half a tumblerful would be about six ounces of shaved ice.
The American soda fountain spent the early twentieth century producing teetotal or near-teetotal versions of bar drinks, and this is one of them: a Kentucky julep translated into syrup, phosphate and carbonated water, with a spoonful of whisky as a nod rather than a base. The word julep traces back through Arabic julāb from Persian gulāb, rose water, and reached English as a term for a sweetened medicinal draught before it attached itself to bourbon and mint in the American South — a lineage that made it comfortable behind a drugstore counter. Acid phosphate, the sour agent here, was a pharmacist's product before it was a drink ingredient, and its presence marks this as a fountain formula rather than a bar one. The closing line about soda tasting as the fountain looks is trade advice: marble, nickel and polished glass were selling equipment as much as the syrups were.