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Mountain Pink Syrup
Alderney Cream, 1 gallon; Granulated Sugar, 10 lbs.; Eggs, both white and yolk, beaten very light, 4; American Extract of Vanilla, 2 ounces; American Extract of Lemon, 2 ounces; American Pineapple Juice, 8 66; Bicarbonate Soda, ½ ounce. Color pink with American Fruit Color.
The bicarbonate soda is added to the pineapple juice to neutralize any acid that may be present. Be sure not to add any acid to the pineapple juice used for this purpose. In dispensing this drink, ice is shaved into the tumbler until it is two-thirds full; the syrup and soda water are then drawn, and more ice shaved on top. Shaving ice on top is essential. It adds greatly to the attractiveness of the drink. We furnish an ice shaver which is especially adapted for use in drawing this drink-the Snowflake. It shaves every particle of ice to snow, and does not clog up. Price $27.00.
This is a fountain-scale bulk syrup from the trade era, written for a dispenser working behind a marble counter with a wholesale account and an ice shaver. Several things in it do not carry over.
- Raw egg in a held syrupFour whole eggs are beaten raw into a gallon of cream and sugar and the mixture is never heated at any point. A syrup of this kind was mixed in bulk and drawn off over the course of service, which means raw egg and raw dairy standing at fountain temperature: a straightforward Salmonella risk. The sugar load does not make it shelf-stable.
- Unpasteurized cream'Alderney cream' in the fountain era meant cream from Channel Island stock, valued for very high butterfat, and would in most cases have been unpasteurized. Nothing in the method pasteurizes it, and the finished syrup is diluted with soda water and served cold. Use a current recipe if you want an egg cream syrup.
- Alderney cream'Alderney' was one of the Channel Island cattle names, used loosely in the period and no longer surviving as a separate breed. The point of specifying it was butterfat, roughly what would now be sold as heavy or double cream.
- The bicarbonateHalf an ounce of baking soda per gallon is added to neutralize the acid in the pineapple juice, presumably so it does not curdle the cream. This is why the text warns against adding any acid to that juice.
- "American Extract"The repeated 'American' prefix on the extracts, the pineapple juice and the fruit color suggests branded goods from a single supplier rather than a style of extract. Fountain syrups were drawn in small measure and cut with carbonated water, so the flavouring is spread across many glasses.
- ScaleA gallon of cream and ten pounds of sugar yields somewhere near two gallons of finished syrup, which is on the order of a hundred and fifty drinks. Nothing about the quantities was meant for a household.
- The shaverThe closing lines are advertising copy for the Snowflake ice shaver, priced at twenty-seven dollars. The shaved-ice-on-top instruction is genuine fountain practice, but the paragraph exists to sell equipment.
Soda fountain manuals of this period were published by the equipment houses that supplied the fountains, and the recipes doubled as catalogues: nearly every branded ingredient here, down to the fruit coloring and the ice shaver, could be ordered from the same firm that printed the book. "Mountain Pink" is a fancy-drink name of the sort fountains invented by the dozen around the turn of the century, when the trade was competing on novelty and appearance rather than flavor alone; the tinted syrup and the cap of snow-fine ice were the selling points. Cream-and-egg syrups were a staple of the era, marketed as nourishing rather than merely refreshing, and they belong to the same commercial moment that produced the egg phosphate and the egg malted milk. The insistence on shaved ice heaped above the rim is a reminder that fountain work was performance as much as mixing, done in full view of the customer.