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Peach Mix
One ounce concentrated peach juice, ¾ glass shaved ice, fill with soda, add 1 spoonful powdered sugar, 1 ounce peach and cream syrup, and a slice of peach if obtainable, if not, use a slice of orange or a couple of cherries. Straws.
A fountain drink built in the glass, written for a dispenser with a soda draft arm and a row of syrup pumps. Everything here translates, but two of the ingredients are trade goods you will have to stand in for.
- The glassA fountain "glass" in this period is usually an 8 to 12 oz soda glass, so ¾ glass of shaved ice is roughly a cup of ice. The recipe makes one drink.
- Concentrated peach juiceA fountain concentrate: an unsweetened or lightly sweetened fruit extract sold to druggists, far more intense than bottled juice. Peach nectar reduced, or peach purée thinned with a little water, comes closer than juice straight from the carton.
- Peach and cream syrup"Cream syrup" at the fountain appears to have meant a heavy sugar syrup flavoured with vanilla, sometimes carrying a little cream, giving body and a soft finish rather than dairy richness. A vanilla simple syrup with a spoonful of heavy cream stirred in is a practical stand-in.
- Powdered sugarIn fountain manuals this means fine or superfine granulated sugar, which dissolved fast in cold water. Modern confectioners' sugar contains cornstarch and will cloud the drink; use caster sugar or a splash more simple syrup.
- "Fill with soda"Plain carbonated water from a charged tank. Add it down the side of the glass against a bar spoon, or the carbonation blows off and the shaved ice packs into a slush.
- Order of buildingThe recipe's own order is concentrate, ice, soda, then sugar, syrup and fruit; one short lift with a long spoon from the bottom is enough, since over-stirring flattens the soda.
- The garnish clauseThe instruction to substitute orange or cherries when no peach is "obtainable" reads as a seasonality note: fresh peaches were a summer item, while the concentrate was available year round.
Trade manuals like this one were written for the soda dispenser behind a drugstore fountain, not for a home cook: they assume a counter, a draft arm delivering charged water under pressure, and a shelf of proprietary concentrates and syrups. American fountains grew out of the pharmacy's business in mineral and charged waters, which is why so much of the terminology is druggist's terminology. Peach was one of the standard fountain fruit flavours alongside strawberry, pineapple and orange, which could be had as concentrate year round.