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Pistachio Punch
Draw 1 ounce lemon syrup into an 8-ounce mineral tumbler; add ¼ ounce pistachio syrup, ½ ounce milk, ½ ounce claret wine, 1 egg, and shaved ice; shake thoroughly, strain, and top off with powdered nutmeg. Serve.
A fountain "punch" of the egg-drink family, closer to an eggnog than to anything fizzy. The problem is the egg, which is never heated at any point.
- Raw whole egg, never heatedThe egg goes into the shaker whole and is served straight out of the strainer. Nothing in the drink — cold syrup, cold milk, a half ounce of wine, shaved ice — brings it anywhere near a temperature that would deal with Salmonella, and the small amount of alcohol does nothing meaningful either. If you want a drink of this type today, use a current recipe built on pasteurized shell eggs or pasteurized liquid egg.
- The milk compounds itThe milk -- A half ounce of milk goes in raw and unheated alongside the egg, adding a second perishable ingredient to a drink that is never brought to temperature.
- What the measures meanAn 8-ounce mineral tumbler holds about a cup; the poured liquid here comes to 2¼ ounces before the egg and the ice, so the drink is a small, cold one.
- Pistachio syrupCommercial pistachio syrup of the era was frequently a green-tinted almond flavour rather than true pistachio — often built on bitter-almond oil or benzaldehyde, which is why it read as "nutty" at a quarter ounce. Modern pistachio syrups are a different product entirely.
- ClaretIn American usage of the period, claret meant a dry red Bordeaux or any dry red sold in its style. Half an ounce is there for colour and a faint tannic edge, not for strength.
- YieldOne glass, served immediately.
Soda fountains sold far more than carbonated water. By the turn of the twentieth century the dispenser's repertoire included egg drinks, egg phosphates, egg lemonades and "punches" like this one, whose name and nutmeg finish are generally traced to the tavern punches and possets the fountain was partly built to replace. The small measure of claret is a survival of that older bar vocabulary at a counter often regarded as the temperance alternative to the saloon — a half ounce of wine sat comfortably in the same category as the bitters and wine-of-coca tonics the druggist also kept behind the marble. Grated nutmeg over the top of anything containing egg and milk is older still, and had been the standard signal for that class of drink since well before the fountain existed.