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Peruvian, Ottawa, or Root Beer Syrup
American Peruvian Beer Extract, 5½ ounces; Simple Syrup, 1 gallon; American Fruit Acid, ½ ounces; American Soda Foam, ½ ounce.
This is a fountain formula rather than a kitchen recipe: four trade preparations blended into a gallon of syrup that is then drawn by the ounce and topped with carbonated water. Nothing here is cooked, and the whole exercise depends on knowing what the branded ingredients actually were.
- "American" means a brand, not a style"American" here looks like a proprietary prefix rather than a style -- American Peruvian Beer Extract, American Fruit Acid and American Soda Foam appear to be branded preparations of the sort sold to druggists, and the book assumes the reader has the supplier's list to hand. Substituting a modern root beer concentrate changes the strength considerably, so work by taste rather than by the stated 5½ ounces.
- Simple syrup at fountain strengthFountain syrups were generally heavier than bar syrup, often around two parts granulated sugar to one part water by weight, and some formularies clarify them with egg white. A gallon is 128 fl oz, so at the usual 1 to 1½ oz pour this yields roughly 85 to 128 drinks.
- Fruit acidA "fruit acid" solution was citric or tartaric acid dissolved in water, at strengths that vary from one formulary to the next. Its job is to cut the sweetness and give the syrup a bite; half an ounce in a gallon is a small correction, not a flavour in its own right.
- Soda foamFoam preparations were saponin extracts, most often from quillaia (soapbark) or yucca, which hold a head on a carbonated drink. Quillaia extract is still permitted as a foaming agent in soft drinks but is regulated at low levels; modern commercial foamers are sold for the same purpose.
- Sassafras and safrolePeriod root beer extracts were built on sassafras root bark. Safrole, its principal aroma compound, was prohibited as a food additive in the United States in 1960 after it was shown to be carcinogenic in animals. Any extract bought today is safrole-free, and sassafras root bark gathered by hand is not a substitute.
- "Beer" here is not beerNo fermentation is involved and there is no alcohol. The syrup is drawn cold and charged at the fountain; nothing is brewed, bottled or allowed to stand.
- ServingThe standard fountain pour was 1 to 1½ fl oz of syrup in a glass, filled with carbonated water under coarse stream and stirred once. Keep the finished syrup refrigerated; without preservatives it will not hold at room temperature the way a shop's stock did.
Formularies like this one were working documents for the druggist's fountain, where the soda counter was an extension of the dispensary and syrups were compounded from bought-in extracts exactly as tinctures were. The three names in the title point to the same syrup sold under whichever label a shop preferred: "root beer" after the sassafras, sarsaparilla and wintergreen roots that flavoured it, with "Peruvian" and "Ottawa" serving as alternative trade labels whose origins are not documented here. Root beer's rise through the late nineteenth century owed a good deal to the temperance movement, which welcomed a drink that tasted of the tavern without being one, and the soda fountain gave it a respectable public counter to be sold across.