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Raspberry-Ade
Raspberry Syrup, 1 ounce.
Lemon, juice of Shaved ice and solid soda to fill mineral glass. Serve with a straw.
A fountain formula written for a dispenser who had a syrup rail and a carbonated water draught at hand. Translated for a home kitchen it is a two-minute drink, provided you read the fountain shorthand correctly.
- "1 ounce" of syrupFluid ounce, i.e. 2 tablespoons. That is the whole sweetening for the glass, so a thin or lightly sweetened syrup will read as watery.
- "Solid soda"Fountain apparatus offered a fine, foaming stream and a coarse or "solid" stream. Solid soda means the coarse draught, carbonated water delivered with as little foam as possible, so the glass fills with liquid rather than head. Plain chilled seltzer or club soda poured down the side of the glass is the equivalent.
- Mineral glassA fountain tumbler. The capacity is not stated here; any tall tumbler of roughly 10 to 12 ounces will serve, with the ice taking up part of it.
- Lemon juiceThe original leaves the quantity to the dispenser. Something on the order of half a lemon, 2 teaspoons to a tablespoon, suits an ounce of sweet syrup. Add it before the soda so it disperses without stirring the carbonation flat.
- Raspberry syrupPeriod fountain syrup was a heavy sugar syrup, far sweeter and thicker than a modern coffee-shop flavouring or a pourable dessert sauce. If you use a commercial syrup that is thinner or less sweet, expect to increase the ounce.
- Shaved iceShaved rather than cubed ice was usual at the fountain, and it chills the glass quickly. Cubes will do if that is what you have.
- YieldOne glass. Scale by the glass rather than mixing a pitcher, since the drink depends on the carbonation being fresh.
"Ade" at the soda fountain meant a fruit acid drink built on the lemonade pattern -- syrup, citrus, ice, water -- with carbonated water standing in for still. Fountain manuals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries typically ran a whole column of them, orangeade, cherry-ade, pineapple-ade, raspberry-ade, all identical in method and distinguished only by which syrup bottle the dispenser reached for. American soda fountains grew out of pharmacy counters, where carbonated mineral water was sold as a health article and fruit syrups were added to make it palatable; the raspberry syrups and vinegars on the shelf had themselves come from an older domestic tradition of preserving summer fruit in sugar for winter drinks. By the end of the nineteenth century the medicinal pretext had largely fallen away and the fountain was simply where people went for something cold and sweet, the straw included as general fountain practice.