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Nectar Syrup (Strawberry Syrup quart Orgeat)
Strawberry Syrup, 1 quart; Orgeat Syrup, 1 quart; Madeira Wine, 4 ounces.
A soda fountain compound syrup rather than a drink: three components blended and bottled, then drawn by the ounce and topped with carbonated water. The original assumes you already keep the two base syrups on hand.
- What you are actually makingCombine the syrups and wine in a clean vessel, stir until fully homogeneous, and bottle. Nothing is cooked or heated; heating would drive off the wine and dull the almond note that is the point of the formula.
- Yield and dosageJust over two quarts, about 2 litres. At the fountain standard of 1 to 1.5 oz of syrup per 8 oz glass, that is roughly 45 to 68 drinks.
- Orgeat syrupA sweetened almond emulsion, faintly floral from orange flower water. The name descends from Latin hordeum, barley, because the earliest versions were barley emulsions; almond had displaced barley long before this book. Commercial tiki-bar orgeat works, though some modern brands are thicker and more almond-forward than fountain orgeat, so consider cutting the quart with a little simple syrup.
- Strawberry syrupPeriod fountain strawberry was a heavy sugar syrup rather than a thin fruit coulis. A modern strawberry syrup of soda-fountain density is the right substitute; fruit puree will not keep and will not draw cleanly from a pump.
- MadeiraFour ounces in two quarts is a flavouring, not an intoxicant, but it is real fortified wine: the finished syrup lands somewhere around one per cent alcohol by volume, and a fraction of that in the glass once it is drawn and charged. Use a dry-ish Sercial or Verdelho; sweet Malmsey will push the blend cloying against two quarts of already-sweet syrup.
- Keeping itSugar density does most of the preserving work, but the wine and any fruit solids will oxidise. Refrigerate and use within about a month; if the strawberry darkens to brick or the almond turns rancid-smelling, discard.
- ServingDraw over shaved or cracked ice, fill with cold carbonated water, and stir once. It also behaves well as a soda-free cordial over ice with a squeeze of lemon.
"Nectar" was a stock name on American soda fountain lists through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and it often described a compound rather than a single flavour: dispensers built blends from the syrups already ranked along the counter, so that a shop's nectar might differ from the one across the street. The almond-and-red-fruit pairing here is the same axis that runs through European ratafias and the later tiki drinks, and the splash of Madeira is a reminder that fountain work and bar work were close cousins. Formulas of this kind, printed as three lines with no method, were written for a trade reader who knew that "syrup" meant a specific sugar density and needed only the proportions.