Ping-Pong Punch

A fountain punch built for a bowl rather than a glass, and one of the few in the soda book that carries real alcohol. The proportions are sound; the vocabulary is what needs translating.

• Champagne syrupNot wine. Fountain champagne syrup was a sweetened flavouring built on plain simple syrup with citric or tartaric acid and a fruit-and-floral essence meant to suggest sparkling wine. Two quarts of it is the sugar backbone of the whole punch; substituting a light simple syrup with lemon juice and a little pear or white grape flavour gets you close.
• CiderIn American trade writing of this period cider without qualification usually means sweet, unfermented apple cider. If you use hard cider instead, the punch shifts from mildly alcoholic to properly boozy.
• Apple brandyApplejack. A half pint is 8 fl oz, spread across roughly nine quarts of finished punch, so the spirit is a seasoning rather than the point of the drink.
• Crushed pineappleHalf a pint by volume, about a cup. It may be tinned crushed pineapple in syrup or fruit crushed at the fountain; the recipe does not say. If it is packed in syrup, drain it should you want the punch less sweet, since the champagne syrup is already carrying a great deal of sugar.
• Juice of four orangesRoughly one cup, depending on the fruit. Taste and add lemon juice if the punch reads flat.
• The garnish line"Thinly sliced Oranges and Apples I each" is a typesetter's rendering of "1 each" -- one orange and one apple, sliced thin and floated. Slice the apple last and toss it in a little of the citrus juice or it browns in the bowl.
• Ice and dilutionThe recipe says nothing about ice. If you are chilling the components and serving over cubes, hold back a quart of the water until you have tasted it.
• YieldThe listed volumes total roughly nine quarts before ice, which at a four- to five-ounce punch cup is upwards of sixty servings. Scale to a quarter for a bowl of ordinary domestic size.