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Peppermint Syrup
Plain Syrup, 1 gallon; American Peppermint Extract, 1 ounce; American Soda Foam, 1 ounce.
A three-line fountain formula of the kind druggists compounded by the gallon. Two of the three ingredients need translating before it means anything in a home kitchen.
- Plain syrupFountain "plain syrup" (also called simple or stock syrup) was much heavier than the 1:1 syrup most cooks make now — commonly around 6 to 7 lb of sugar to the gallon, or roughly two parts sugar to one part water by weight. That density is what keeps the syrup from thinning the soda into sugar water.
- Scaling downOne ounce of extract to one gallon of syrup is 1:128. For a single cup of syrup that is about 3/8 teaspoon of peppermint extract, which is easier to hit accurately if you measure in drops: roughly 35 to 40 drops per cup.
- "American Soda Foam"A proprietary foaming agent, not a flavour. These preparations were generally saponin extracts, usually quillaia (soap bark), sometimes cut with glycerine or gum, and their job was to give the drawn soda a lasting head. Formulas differed from brand to brand and the exact composition of this one is not recorded here.
- Leaving the foam outOmit it and the drink is still correct, just flatter-looking. If you want head retention, a few drops of a modern quillaia-based cocktail foamer does the same work; do not substitute egg white, which will not keep in a syrup held at room temperature.
- Which peppermint"American Peppermint Extract" meant an alcoholic extract of domestically distilled Mentha piperita oil, as distinct from the English (Mitcham) oil. Any pure peppermint extract works. Peppermint oil does not — it is many times stronger than extract and will not disperse in syrup.
- ServingOne to one and a half fluid ounces of syrup in a glass, filled with carbonated water and stirred once. A gallon of finished syrup is on the order of 85 to 128 glasses; a home cook should make a cup or two at a time and refrigerate it.
- StorageHeavy syrup keeps for weeks under refrigeration, but the mint volatiles fade first. Flavour and use within a month rather than holding it the way a busy fountain could.
Books like this one were written for the soda fountain trade rather than the household: the druggist bought plain syrup, extracts and proprietary compounds by the gallon and combined them behind the counter, which is why the entry reads as a proportion rather than a method. Peppermint had a double claim on the fountain — it was a stock carminative from the pharmacy shelf, taken for indigestion, and it was also simply a popular cold-drink flavour, so it sat comfortably in a business that was half dispensary and half refreshment stand. The word "American" in the extract's name reflects a real commercial distinction: by the later nineteenth century the United States, and Michigan and Indiana in particular, had become a major grower and distiller of peppermint oil, and domestic oil was priced and graded against the older English Mitcham product. "Soda Foam" belongs to the era's large trade in branded compounds sold to fountain operators — foaming agents, based on soap-bark saponins, that gave a drawn glass the head customers expected.