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Peach Syrup (American Peach Juice quart)
American Peach Juice, 1 quart; American Fruit Acid, 1 ounce; American Soda Foam, ¾ ounce. Add enough simple syrup to make 1 ½ gallons.
If a 10-pound syrup is used, add 2 pounds sugar, and dissolve in the juice by stirring or by slight heat, but avoid boiling. An electric fan means no flies. Think it over.
This is a bulk fountain formula, written for a druggist who bought flavor bases by the brand name and dispensed syrup by the ounce into a glass of carbonated water. Almost every ingredient here is a trade product rather than something in a home pantry.
- Do not boil the juiceThe one instruction that matters: dissolve the added sugar in the peach juice with stirring or gentle warmth only. Boiling drives off the volatile esters that carry peach aroma and leaves a flat, cooked-jam flavor.
- "American Peach Juice"A trade product sold under a brand name to the fountain trade rather than something pressed at home. A quart of it goes into a gallon and a half of finished syrup, so it was a bulk juice preparation of some strength; how concentrated is not stated. Bottled peach nectar is the nearest modern shelf equivalent, but it is weaker and may be lost at this dilution.
- "American Fruit Acid"A branded acid solution, probably citric or a citric-tartaric blend in water, used to give fruit syrups the tartness that sugar masks. One ounce in 1½ gallons is a small correction, so add it last and taste.
- "American Soda Foam"A foaming agent, in this period typically an extract of quillaia (soapbark) or a similar gum-saponin preparation, added so the drink held a head when charged water hit it. Quillaia extract is still permitted as a beverage foaming agent today, though its use is regulated and limited; it is not something a home cook will have.
- "A 10-pound syrup"Fountain simple syrup was specified by the weight of sugar per gallon rather than by ratio. The direction to add 2 pounds of sugar implies a 10-pound syrup was thinner than what this formula wanted; the exact intended finished strength is not stated and cannot be pinned down precisely.
- QuantitiesA gallon here is the US gallon of 128 fluid ounces, so the whole batch is 1½ gallons, or 192 fluid ounces of syrup. The recipe does not say whether its ounces are fluid or weight; for liquid preparations of this kind fluid ounces are the likelier reading.
- YieldAt the usual dispensing rate of 1 to 1½ fluid ounces of syrup per glass, this makes roughly 130 to 190 drinks. Scale down by a factor of ten or more for any domestic purpose.
- KeepingA syrup at proper fountain density is largely self-preserving, but a diluted or under-sugared batch will ferment or mold. Refrigerate anything you make at reduced strength and use it within a couple of weeks.
- The last two sentences"An electric fan means no flies. Think it over." is trade advice to the fountain operator, not part of the formula.
Soda fountain manuals like this one were written for pharmacists, who commonly ran the fountain as a sideline to the prescription counter, and they read like supply catalogs because that is largely what they were: formulas built around branded juices, acids and foams. Peach sat in the American fruit-syrup line alongside cherry, strawberry and pineapple, and "foam" syrups were valued because a head on the glass looked substantial. The aside about the electric fan belongs to the sanitation concerns of the early twentieth century, when open syrup jars, unscreened doorways and flies at the fountain were a live public-health argument.