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Pistachio Syrup
American Pistachio Extract, ½ ounces; Simple Syrup, 1 gallon; American Soda Foam, ½ ounce. We recommend the use of American Concentrated Syrups, as they require - no compounding, except dilution with simple syrup. The best formulas for their use will be found under the proper headings,
This is a fountain formula, not a household one: it makes a gallon of flavoring syrup meant to be dosed by the ounce into a glass and topped with carbonated water. Scale it down before you commit a gallon of sugar to it.
- What "simple syrup" meant hereFountain simple syrup was far heavier than the 1:1 bar standard " close to saturated, on the order of 6 1/2 to 7 lb of sugar dissolved per gallon of finished syrup. A thinner syrup will taste weak at fountain dosing and will spoil faster.
- The half-ounce is ambiguousThe text reads "1/2 ounces," which for an extract means half a fluid ounce, about 1 tablespoon per gallon. That is a very light hand; taste the diluted result at soda strength before adding more, since these commercial extracts varied widely in cutting strength.
- American Soda FoamA proprietary foaming agent, at this date usually an extract of quillaia (soapbark) or a similar saponin-bearing material, sold to give a soda a lasting head. It is not a flavor. Quillaia extract is still permitted in beverages under quantity limits; omit it and the drink simply looks flatter.
- "American Concentrated Syrups"The closing recommendation reads as house promotion for the branded line sold alongside this book: buy the pre-compounded base and just cut it with simple syrup. Those proprietary products are no longer on the market, so the extract-plus-syrup route is the one open to you.
- Pistachio flavor in the fountain tradeNineteenth- and early twentieth-century pistachio extracts were generally built on bitter-almond and vanilla notes rather than actual pistachio nut, with green color often added separately, though some proprietary extracts came already tinted. If you want real nut flavor, expect to add it yourself.
- ServingStandard fountain practice was roughly 1 to 1 1/4 fluid ounces of syrup in the glass, then carbonated water to fill, stirred once. A gallon of syrup at that rate is something like 100 to 128 drinks.
- KeepingA heavy sugar syrup resists spoilage but is not sterile. Bottle it clean, refrigerate, and discard at the first sign of haze or ropiness.
Soda-fountain manuals like this one were published by flavoring-extract and apparatus houses as much to sell their own goods as to instruct, which is why the formula ends by steering the dispenser toward the firm's concentrated syrups. Pistachio was one of a family of pale, faintly nutty "fancy" flavors " alongside almond, orgeat and vanilla cream " that dressed up plain carbonated water in the decades when the drugstore fountain was the main American public bar for non-drinkers. The flavor itself owed more to benzaldehyde and vanilla than to the nut, and the green tint that made it recognizable was generally added from a separate coloring bottle; that coupling of a nut name to an almond-scented green syrup is still visible in commercial pistachio ice cream today. Foaming preparations, sold under names like the one here, were a standard part of the fountain kit, valued because a soda that held its head looked more generous in the glass than it was.