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Princess Punch
Put in a mixing glass: Claret wine, ½ ounce; wild cherry syrup, ¼ ounce; raspberry syrup, ¼ ounce; Cohasset, ½ ounce; lemon juice, 3 dashes. Fill glass with plain White Rock water and shaved ice, mix with a spoon, do not shake. Pour into 12-ounce tall glass and top with fruit; serve with straws.
A fountain-style punch built directly in the glass, thickened with two fruit syrups and lengthened with sparkling water. The whole point is the stirring: this is a clear, layered drink, and shaking it clouds it and kills the carbonation.
- Do not shakeThe instruction is explicit and it matters. Stir once or twice with a bar spoon after the water goes in; agitation drives off the gas and turns the syrups muddy.
- Fluid ounces, fountain measureAll quantities are fluid ounces poured from a jigger or graduated measure. Half an ounce is one tablespoon; a quarter ounce is a half tablespoon, or about 1½ teaspoons.
- White Rock waterA branded still-and-sparkling mineral water from Waukesha, Wisconsin, widely stocked at fountains of the period. "Plain" distinguishes it from the flavoured lines; any lightly mineralised sparkling water stands in.
- CohassetShorthand for Cohasset Punch, a sweetened rum-and-peach cordial bottled in Chicago. It is not a supermarket item; a peach-flavoured rum liqueur is the nearest equivalent, and a peach syrup with a splash of dark rum will carry the same effect.
- Wild cherry syrupA fountain syrup usually made with wild cherry bark extract rather than cherry fruit, giving a faintly bitter, almost medicinal edge behind the sweetness. Ordinary cherry syrup is sweeter and rounder; expect a less interesting drink.
- ClaretIn American usage of this period, a dry red Bordeaux or any dry red sold under that label. Half an ounce is a colouring and flavouring accent, not a base.
- Shaved iceGenuinely shaved or finely cracked ice, not cubes. It chills fast and keeps the fruit garnish afloat rather than letting it sink to the bottom of the tall glass.
- Yield and servingOne 12-ounce glass, mostly water. Top with whatever cut fruit is on hand — orange slice, cherry, pineapple wedge — and serve with straws while it is still lively.
Soda fountain manuals of the early twentieth century are full of "punches" like this one: tall, iced, syrup-sweetened drinks that borrow the name and the fruit garnish of a party punch bowl while being mixed to order for a single customer. Many carried a small measure of wine or a proprietary cordial, since a dispensing fountain in a drugstore often sold both soft drinks and lightly alcoholic ones until Prohibition closed that door in 1920. The Cohasset Punch called for here was one of those proprietary bottlings, a rum-and-peach cordial generally traced to Chicago and named, by tradition, for the Massachusetts summer resort; fountain books cited it by brand the way a modern recipe cites a specific bitters. The "Princess" title is decorative rather than descriptive.