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Nectarine Syrup
Peach Floss, 1 quart; Claret Syrup, 1 pint; Orange Syrup, 1 pint. Mix well.
This is a fountain compound rather than a cooked recipe: three ready-made bottled syrups blended into a fourth. The whole thing hinges on what those three components were, since none of them meant what a modern shopper would assume.
- There is no nectarine in itThe flavour is built from peach, red wine and orange. Why the name was chosen is not stated; fountain syrup names often bore little relation to their contents.
- Peach FlossA trade name for a bought-in peach preparation rather than spun sugar; what exactly it contained is unclear. A good peach syrup, or peach puree cut with simple syrup, is the nearest available stand-in.
- Claret syrupA sweetened syrup in the colour and flavour of red Bordeaux. Period formulas vary: some used actual claret, others imitated it with fruit juice, acid and colouring, so the wine reference may be to taste and hue rather than content.
- Orange syrupPeriod fountain orange syrup was made with orange juice, sugar and a trace of oil of orange or orange peel tincture. A modern orange syrup works, but keep it fresh-tasting rather than candy-like or it will bully the peach.
- QuantitiesA quart plus two pints gives two quarts, or eight cups, of finished syrup. That is fountain scale; a household batch at one-eighth the volume is half a cup peach syrup with a quarter cup each of the other two.
- How it was servedThe book assumes a soda fountain, so expect roughly 1 to 1.5 fluid ounces of syrup in a glass, filled with carbonated water and stirred with a spoon. It also does duty over ice cream.
- Keeping itThese blends were mixed for the day's trade, not preserved. Refrigerate and use within a week or two; fruit syrups made without commercial preservatives ferment or grow mould quickly at room temperature.
Fountain formula books like this one were written for the dispenser behind the marble counter, not for the cook, and their recipes are largely compounds: a handful of bottled bases recombined into something with a saleable name. By the early twentieth century a busy American drugstore fountain might list dozens of syrups, many of them variations on a small stock of fruit and "wine" bases, and a new name was a cheap way to expand the menu without buying new supplies. "Claret", sherry, port and champagne syrups are a good marker of the period; some were made with the wine itself, others imitated it, and the imitations suited a fountain that wanted the idea of wine without the drink.