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Pineapple Syrup
American Extract Pineapple (artificial), 1 ounce; Simple Syrup, 1 gallon; American Fruit Acid, 1 ounce. American Yellow Vegetable Color American Soda Foam
This is a trade formula rather than a domestic recipe: four of the five items are branded products from a supply house, and two of them are listed with no quantity at all. It is workable if you translate the proprietary names into what they actually were.
- What "Simple Syrup" meant hereFountain simple syrup was considerably heavier than a modern 1:1-by-volume bar syrup. A thin syrup will taste weak and will not keep as long.
- American Extract Pineapple (artificial)A concentrated alcoholic flavoring of the kind sold by soda-fountain supply houses. The characteristic note is ethyl butyrate, long the standard synthetic pineapple ester. A modern pineapple extract is likely weaker, so start at half the ounce and taste.
- American Fruit AcidA solution of citric or tartaric acid, used to give the sharpness that real fruit juice would supply. The strength of the proprietary solution is unknown, so citric acid powder dissolved in a little water is the nearest equivalent, added to taste.
- Yellow vegetable colorNo amount is given. Such colors were commonly annatto or turmeric; both will tint a gallon with very little, and turmeric will cloud it if overdone.
- Soda FoamA saponin extract, usually from quillaia bark, sold to give drawn sodas a lasting head. It is a regulated additive now and not a pantry item; the syrup is perfectly serviceable without it, simply flatter-looking.
- Yield and dosageA gallon of finished syrup. Fountain practice was roughly 1 to 1.5 fluid ounces of syrup per glass topped with carbonated water, so figure roughly 85 to 128 drinks.
- Keeping itAt full fountain sugar density and with the acid present, the syrup holds for weeks refrigerated in a clean bottle. A lighter syrup will ferment or mold, so make less of it.
Soda syrup formularies like this one existed to sell the ingredients as much as to teach the method — nearly every item in the list is a branded product from the same supply trade, and the "recipe" is really a mixing ratio for the drug-store dispenser. Artificial pineapple is often said to have been among the earliest commercial fruit flavors, generally traced to the mid-nineteenth-century confectioner's "pineapple oil," essentially ethyl butyrate, which mimics the fruit closely enough to stand in for actual pineapple, then an expensive import. The soda fountain reached its height in the decades either side of Prohibition, when the drug store counter became a serious commercial rival to the saloon, and formulas were written for men working at volume behind marble: gallon batches, ounce doses, and color added by eye until it looked like what the customer had ordered.