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Phroso
Ginger syrup, 1 ounce; lemon syrup, 1 ounce; Jamaica rum, 1 dash; angostura bitters, 1 dash; 1 egg; acid phosphate to suit; cracked ice. Shake well together, strain, add fine stream and serve with nutmeg and straw.
A fountain flip from the era when the drugstore counter competed directly with the saloon. The problem is the egg, which in this drink is never heated at any point.
- The raw egg is the reason to stopA whole egg is shaken with ice, strained, topped with soda and served. Nothing in the sequence reaches a temperature that would inactivate Salmonella, and the acid phosphate and rum are present in quantities far too small to matter. If you want a flip today, use a current recipe built on pasteurised egg.
- Acid phosphateA dilute solution of phosphoric acid with calcium, magnesium and potassium salts, used at the fountain to give a dry, mineral tartness without the fruit flavour of citric acid. It is still made for the cocktail trade, and "to suit" meant a few dashes from a shaker-top bottle.
- "Fine stream"Fountain draft arms had a coarse stream for volume and a fine stream for finishing, the fine one drawn through a small aperture to raise foam. On the syrups and egg here it was what built the head.
- Dash and ounceA fountain dash is roughly an eighth of a teaspoon from a dasher-top bottle, not a free pour. The two ounces of syrup are fluid ounces, measured with a graduated syrup pump or a shot glass, and they make this a sweet drink by modern standards.
- Ginger and lemon syrupBoth could be house-made stocks kept under the counter, the ginger a heavy sugar syrup infused with dried root and often a little capsicum for bite, though commercial bottled syrups were also widely sold to fountains.
- YieldOne glass, served with grated nutmeg and a straw; the original gives no glass size.
Egg drinks were the American soda fountain's answer to the bar's flips and fizzes, and dispensers' manuals of the 1890s and 1900s are thick with them: egg phosphates, egg lemonades, egg chocolates, all sold as nourishment as much as refreshment. The dash of Jamaica rum and the angostura here show how thin the line was between the two counters, since a druggist could keep spirits and bitters legitimately as pharmacy stock and dose a drink with them by the dash. The name Phroso may well be borrowed rather than descriptive: Anthony Hope's novel Phroso appeared in 1897, and fountain men routinely attached the titles of current hits, actresses and songs to their inventions to give a familiar drink a saleable name. Nutmeg grated over the top was the standard finish for any egg drink, a habit inherited directly from the older posset and flip tradition.