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Plantation Punch
Plain syrup, ½ gallon, colored light red with carmine coloring; then add (cut in small cubes) the following :- One lemon, 2 oranges, 2 peaches, 4 bananas.
The lemons and oranges should be cut with the peel on. Mix thoroughly and dispense. It is served plain, about two ounces to a glass, then fill with soda water, or can be served with ice cream. The fruit should always be thoroughly mixed before dispensing. It is best served from a fruit bowl with a large silver spoon.
This is a fountain syrup rather than a drink in itself: a sweetened fruit base held in a bowl and spooned into glasses to order. A few of its assumptions belong to a 1900s drugstore counter rather than a home kitchen.
- Plain syrupFountain "plain syrup" (also called simple or stock syrup) was generally made heavier than the 1:1 syrup most bartenders use now, often closer to two parts sugar to one part water by weight. Half a gallon is 8 cups, and at that density would take roughly 3½ to 4 lb of sugar.
- Scale it downHalf a gallon of syrup plus the fruit yields somewhere around forty servings at two ounces each. A quarter of the recipe — 2 cups syrup, a quarter lemon, half an orange, half a peach, one banana — is a more realistic batch.
- Carmine coloringCarmine is cochineal extract, a red dye made from scale insects, and it is still sold as a food color under that name or as E120. It is not vegan and is a recognized allergen for a small number of people; a few drops of any red food coloring does the same job here.
- Peel onThe recipe specifies cutting the lemon and orange with the peel left on; the oils in the zest would carry flavor into the syrup. Scrub the fruit first, since modern citrus is usually waxed, and cut the cubes small so they sit well on a spoon.
- Bananas and browningFour bananas in an acidic sugar syrup will darken and soften within a few hours. Add them last, close to service, or accept that the batch is a same-day proposition.
- Holding the bowlCut fruit sitting in syrup at room temperature ferments and picks up spoilage organisms; keep the bowl refrigerated and discard what is left after 24 hours.
- Soda waterTwo ounces of syrup filled with soda suggests a glass of roughly 8 to 10 ounces. Pour the soda in hard against the syrup first to mix it, then top gently so the carbonation survives.
- With ice creamServed over a scoop, this becomes closer to a fruit sundae than a drink: two ounces of the fruited syrup with a scoop of vanilla.
Soda fountain manuals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are full of "punches" that contain no alcohol at all — the word had already loosened from its old meaning of a spirit-based bowl drink into a general term for anything fruity, mixed and ladled. "Plantation" was one of a stock of romantic Southern names fountains attached to fruit combinations, and the naming habit is a plain reminder of how casually the trade drew on plantation imagery for marketing. What is genuinely of its moment is the equipment: the fruit bowl and long silver spoon were part of the display, letting a customer see whole cubes of orange and banana going into the glass.