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Nectar Syrup (American Nectar Extract ounce)
American Nectar Extract, 1 ounce; Madeira Wine, 8 ounces; American Soda Foam, ½ ounce; Simple Syrup, 1 gallon.
This is a fountain formula rather than a household recipe: a bulk flavouring syrup to be kept in a jar under the counter and drawn an ounce or two at a time into a glass of carbonated water. Two of the four ingredients are proprietary trade preparations that no longer exist under those names.
- What "nectar" tasted likeAmerican Nectar Extract was a compounded fountain flavour, not a single fruit. Period formularies build it from bitter almond or peach kernel with vanilla, rose or orange, sometimes with pineapple; the result reads as a sweet almond-vanilla. Any modern almond-and-vanilla flavouring combination will stand in, but there is no exact equivalent to buy.
- Simple syrup, fountain strengthFountain simple syrup is far heavier than the bar syrup of today: roughly two parts granulated sugar to one part water by weight, cooked or cold-dissolved. A one-to-one syrup will taste thin and watery when cut with soda water.
- Soda foamSoda foam was a foaming agent, usually an extract of quillaia (soapbark), whose saponins hold a head on the carbonated water. Quillaia extract is still permitted in beverages but only at low levels, and saponins are irritant in quantity; a half ounce in a gallon of syrup drawn out an ounce at a time is a very small dose, but it is not an ingredient to freehand.
- The MadeiraEight ounces of fortified wine in a gallon of syrup works out to a trace of alcohol per glass, well under a percent. Its job is depth and a faint oxidised, nutty note rather than any effect. A dry or medium Sercial or Verdelho suits the almond flavouring better than a sweet Malmsey, since the syrup is already saturated with sugar.
- Quantities and yieldOne gallon of finished syrup is 128 fluid ounces. At the usual fountain draw of one to one and a half ounces per glass, that is roughly 85 to 130 drinks, which tells you plainly this was written for a shop and not a kitchen. Scale the whole formula down by eight or sixteen for a manageable batch.
- Mixing and keepingStir the extract and foam into a little of the syrup first, then combine with the rest and the wine; concentrated flavouring oils will otherwise sit on the surface. The sugar concentration keeps the syrup stable for weeks.
- ServingMeasure the syrup into the glass first, then fill with cold carbonated water drawn hard against the syrup to raise the head. Ice was often kept out of the glass at a good fountain, the water being chilled in the coil instead.
Soda fountain trade books of the late nineteenth century divide their syrups into fruit flavours, "fancy" flavours and the medicated ones, and nectar belonged squarely to the fancy list, alongside sherbet, orgeat and Catawba. The name borrows from the drink of the classical gods, which by the 1800s had become a general advertising word for anything sweet and delicious; the flavour it named was in practice a bitter-almond-and-vanilla compound of the same family as orgeat and the old ratafias. The wine in the formula is a reminder that the American fountain before Prohibition was not a strictly temperance institution: small measures of Madeira, sherry, port and claret turn up throughout these books as flavouring, contributing colour and a winey depth that no essence could supply. Foam preparations of soapbark, sold under trade names, were what gave a fountain drink the head that distinguished it from plain flavoured water.