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Orange Flower Syrup
Simple Syrup, 1 gallon; American Extract Orange Flower, 2 ounces; American Fruit Acid, 1 ounce; American Soda Foam, 66; American Yellow Vegetable Color, 72 1 66.
This is a dispensing formula rather than a kitchen recipe: a gallon batch of flavored syrup meant to be drawn an ounce or two at a time and finished with carbonated water at the fountain. Almost every ingredient is a proprietary trade product, so the quantities only make sense once you know what the trade names stood for.
- The garbled numbersThe trailing figures — "American Soda Foam, 66" and "American Yellow Vegetable Color, 72 1 66" — are not measurements in any recoverable sense; they may be reference numbers, or simply garbled type. Do not try to interpret them as ounces or drams.
- Simple syrup at fountain strengthFountain simple syrup was heavy — roughly 2 parts sugar to 1 part water by weight, near saturation, so it would keep without refrigeration and hold up when cut with soda water. On that ratio a gallon of syrup weighs about 11 lb and carries on the order of 7 to 8 lb of sugar.
- Extract is not orange flower waterAmerican Extract Orange Flower was a concentrated alcoholic flavoring. The orange flower water sold today for baking is vastly weaker; substituting it ounce for ounce gives almost no flavor, while substituting neroli oil gives far too much. Flavor by taste, starting very small.
- Fruit acid"Fruit acid" in fountain work was generally a solution of citric or tartaric acid in water, at strengths that varied from house to house. An ounce of such a solution in a gallon is a light touch of tartness, not a lemonade level of sourness.
- Soda foamFoam preparations were extracts of quillaia (soapbark) or, less often, egg albumen or licorice, added so the drawn drink would carry a head. Quillaia extract is now a regulated additive with limits on use in beverages, and it is not a general grocery item.
- The colorYellow "vegetable" colors of the period ranged from genuine saffron and turmeric infusions to coal-tar dyes sold under the same reassuring label. The color does nothing for the taste and can simply be left out.
- Proportion at the glassFountain practice was commonly about 1 to 1.5 fluid ounces of syrup drawn into the glass, then filled with 6 to 8 ounces of carbonated water. A gallon of syrup is therefore something like 85 to 128 drinks.
Books like this one were written for the men behind the marble counter, not for home cooks, and they read like it: a formula is a list of house-brand products in fixed proportions, and the firm that printed the book was often the same one selling the extracts, acids, foams and colors it called for. Orange flower — the distilled essence of bitter orange blossom — is generally said to have reached the soda fountain by way of the perfumer and the confectioner, where it is traditionally described as a standard sweet-shop flavor in Europe long before carbonated water was sold by the glass in America. Its appeal at the fountain was that it tasted floral and faintly expensive without tasting like fruit, which set it apart from the lemon, orange and raspberry syrups every counter already stocked. The "foam" line is the giveaway that this is dispensing work rather than cooking: nothing about the drink required a head, but a drink that arrived with one looked better in a tall glass, and appearance was much of what the fountain sold.