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Mountain Nectar
One-half ounce pure cream, ½ ounce orange syrup, ½ ounce vanilla syrup, 1 glass shaved ice. Shake well and add enough plain soda to fill the glass, and serve with nutmeg.
A fountain drink built the standard way: cream and flavoring syrups shaken with ice, lengthened with carbonated water. The quantities are fluid ounces, and everything hinges on the order of assembly.
- The measuresA half ounce is one tablespoon, so this is a tablespoon each of cream, orange syrup and vanilla syrup. "One glass shaved ice" means the serving glass filled with ice, not an additional measure of volume.
- The glassFountain glasses of the period came in a range of sizes. Since the glass is filled with shaved ice, the soda makes up whatever room is left after the ice, syrups and cream — several ounces at most. Yield is one drink.
- Pure creamFountain "pure cream" was unhomogenised and richer than modern table cream, though the butterfat varied from house to house. Heavy or whipping cream is the closest match; half-and-half will thin the drink noticeably.
- Fountain syrupsOrange and vanilla syrup here are sweetened flavoring syrups, heavily sugared, not juice and not extract. Modern coffee-bar syrups are close in sweetness; vanilla extract used neat will be harsh and alcoholic.
- CurdlingFountain orange syrups were often acidulated with citric acid, and acid plus cream plus carbonation is how a cream drink breaks. Shake the cream and syrups together with the ice first, then add the soda slowly down the side of the glass and stir once.
- Plain soda"Plain soda" is unflavored carbonated water drawn from the fountain, chilled and hard-carbonated. Bottled club soda or seltzer poured cold and gently will hold more gas than soda splashed in from height.
- The nutmegGrate it over the finished drink at the last moment rather than stirring it in. Pre-ground nutmeg sinks and tastes dusty; the point is the aroma at the rim.
Soda fountain manuals like this one were written for druggists, who ran the fountain as an extension of the dispensary and mixed drinks by the ounce out of graduated syrup bottles. Names such as Mountain Nectar, Klondike, or Egyptian Cream were selling copy as much as description — they told the customer nothing about the contents and everything about the mood, and similar cream-and-syrup formulas circulated under different labels from town to town. The combination anticipates the later orange-and-vanilla creamsicle flavor: orange with vanilla and dairy, a pairing the fountain trade was using well before it was frozen on a stick. Nutmeg grated over a cold cream drink was a common fountain finish, as it was on eggnogs and milk punches.