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Rose Syrup
Use 1 dram or more American Extract of Rose to a quart of cold simple syrup, according to taste.
A soda fountain flavoring syrup rather than a drink in itself: the concentrate that gets a pump or two into a glass before the carbonated water. Two things carry the whole recipe — the strength of the syrup and the strength of the extract.
- What a dram isA fluid dram is one-eighth of a fluid ounce, about 3.7 ml, or roughly three-quarters of a teaspoon. In a quart of syrup that is a very light hand, which is why the text adds "or more".
- Fountain simple syrup is not 1:1Soda fountain "simple syrup" of this era was heavier than a modern equal-parts syrup; the pharmacopoeial standard was on the order of two parts sugar to one part water by weight, close to saturation. A modern equal-parts syrup will taste thin and watery against carbonated water, so build a 2:1 sugar-to-water syrup if you want the intended body.
- Cold syrup, and why"Cold" here refers to the state of the syrup when the extract is added: heat drives off delicate aromatics, and rose in particular loses its top notes. However the syrup itself is made, let it cool fully before flavouring.
- Extract of rose vs rose waterAn "extract" here is a concentrated alcoholic flavoring, many times the strength of the rose water sold in supermarkets today. If you are using rose water, expect to need several tablespoons per quart, not a dram, and add it in stages.
- Food grade onlyRose absolute, attar and "rose oil" sold for perfumery or soap are not the same product and are not intended to be swallowed. Buy something labeled as a food flavoring.
- Season it by taste, in stepsRose crosses from floral to soapy within a very narrow range. Add half the dram, stir, taste the syrup diluted in soda water rather than neat, then adjust — the flavor reads much stronger undiluted.
- Yield and serviceA quart makes roughly 20 to 30 drinks at an ounce to an ounce and a half of syrup topped with 6 to 8 oz of cold carbonated water. Refrigerated, a heavy syrup keeps for weeks; a thin one is better used within a week.
Rose belongs to the oldest layer of American soda fountain flavors, alongside sarsaparilla, vanilla, ginger and orgeat — the era before fruit syrups and then the cola and "dope" drinks pushed the floral ones aside. The taste itself is much older than the fountain: rose water was a standard sweet flavoring in medieval European and Middle Eastern cookery, and apothecaries had long stocked rose preparations as flavoring vehicles for medicine. Imported attar of roses, for its part, was expensive, variable and frequently adulterated. That the recipe is a single sentence tells you what the dispenser's job was — the syrup and the extract came ready-made from suppliers, and the soda clerk's skill lay in proportion and in the draw at the tap.