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Nerve Tonic
Nerve tonic makes a very agreeable hot drink. It should be made into a syrup, and the syrup must not be heated, consequently it should be a heavy syrup made with 10 or 12 pounds of sugar to 1 gallon of water. Three ounces American Nerve Tonic Extract, 1½ ounces American Sarsaparilla Color, 1½ ounces American Soda Foam, 1 gallon plain syrup (heavy). Draw 1 to 2 ounces into a cup, fill with hot water from the draft tube and stir with a spoon.
This is a fountain formula rather than a household recipe: it assumes a druggist's stock of proprietary extracts and a steam-heated water tap. The syrup itself is straightforward; the flavoring is the obstacle.
- The hinge: a heavy syrupThe whole point of 10 to 12 pounds of sugar per gallon of water is that the syrup is never heated, so it must be concentrated enough to survive being cut with a full cup of hot water. A gallon of water weighs about 8 1/3 pounds, so that is roughly 1.2 to 1.4 parts sugar to 1 part water by weight - a heavy syrup, though short of full saturation. Keep the syrup cold when the extracts go in; heat drives off volatile flavor oils.
- Ounces here are fluid ouncesThe three ounces of extract and half-ounces of color and foam are liquid measures dosed into a gallon of finished syrup, not weights. Three fluid ounces is 6 tablespoons.
- American Nerve Tonic ExtractA proprietary fountain flavoring, sold by supply houses under trade names; the maker's own formula was not disclosed, though fountain formularies printed imitations of it. Period "nerve tonic" flavors were typically built on celery seed, kola, coca leaf, gentian and aromatics; the composition varied by maker and by year, so there is no reliable modern equivalent and no way to know what any surviving bottle contains.
- American Sarsaparilla ColorA tinting solution, essentially caramel color in a weak alcohol or glycerin base, used to give the drink the expected brown cast. It contributes almost nothing to flavor.
- American Soda FoamA foaming agent, generally an extract of quillaia (soapbark) or a similar saponin. Quillaia extract is still permitted as a beverage foaming agent but is tightly limited by use level, and the old fountain products were not standardized.
- "Hot water from the draft tube"Soda fountains carried a hot-water draft alongside the carbonated draft, for winter service. Near-boiling water from a kettle does the same job.
- YieldA gallon of finished syrup is 128 fluid ounces, so at 1 to 2 ounces a cup it makes between 64 and 128 servings — a counter's stock for a season, not a batch for a kitchen.
Hot drinks helped a soda fountain earn through the winter months, and "nerve tonic" belonged to the family of flavors that sat on the line between refreshment and medicine - the fountain was, after all, commonly a fixture of a drugstore. Nervousness, or neurasthenia, was a widely accepted diagnosis in American medicine from the 1880s onward, and tonics addressed to it were sold everywhere in bottles, powders and glasses; celery compound, kola and coca all had reputations as restoratives for overworked nerves. What this formula shows is how thoroughly the therapeutic claim had been absorbed into the flavor trade: the dispenser is not compounding a medicine but pouring a syrup flavored with an extract bought from a supply house, coloring it to look like sarsaparilla and adding foam so it looks lively in the cup.