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Peaches and Cream
One-half glassful shaved ice, 1 tablespoonful ice cream, 1 ounce fresh cream, 1 dash extract of peach, 1 tablespoonful crushed peach, 1 ounce peach syrup. Fill with plain soda, fine stream. Serve with spoon.
A fountain drink built in the glass rather than shaken, so the order of assembly and the force of the soda stream do all the mixing. The whole thing takes under a minute at the counter.
- The glassSoda-fountain glasses of this period varied in size, commonly somewhere in the range of 8 to 12 ounces, so "one-half glassful" of shaved ice is a few ounces by volume. Ounces given for cream and syrup are fluid ounces: 2 tablespoons each.
- Fine streamFountain draft arms offered more than one stream, among them a coarse stream for foaming and mixing and a fine stream for topping off without breaking the head. Fine stream here means fill gently so the cream does not look curdled or foam over. A siphon or a bottle of cold seltzer poured down the side of the glass does the same job.
- Shaved ice, not cubesShaved or finely crushed ice chills instantly and holds the crushed fruit in suspension. Cubes will leave the syrup pooled at the bottom and the drink watery on top.
- Peach syrupThis means fountain syrup: a heavy sugar syrup flavored with peach, considerably sweeter and thicker than a modern fruit puree or a canned-peach packing liquid. If you substitute, expect to add sugar.
- Extract of peachCommercial peach extracts of the era were frequently built on benzaldehyde, the almond-scented compound, which is why old peach flavorings often read as marzipan. Modern peach extract is much milder; a dash means a few drops, and it is easy to overdo.
- Ice cream and cream bothThe tablespoon of ice cream is for body and the ounce of fresh cream for richness. They are not interchangeable here.
- YieldOne glass, served with a spoon as the recipe directs, since the crushed fruit and softened ice cream settle out as you drink.
The soda fountain was a druggist's sideline that turned into an American institution, and by the early twentieth century dispensers worked from trade manuals listing hundreds of formulas of exactly this shape: ice, a spoon of ice cream, cream, an extract, a crushed fruit, a syrup, fill with soda. "Peaches and Cream" is a fruit-and-cream drink of the plainest kind, named for the pairing rather than for any inventor, and its presence in a fountain book reflects how much of the trade depended on bottled syrups and extracts that let a dispenser serve peach in February. The distinction between coarse and fine soda streams, which appears constantly in these books, was a genuine craft skill: the same syrup and cream could be turned into a foaming drink or a smooth one depending only on how the operator worked the draft arm.