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Saratoga Cooler
Juice of ½ lemon, 1 teaspoonful sugar, ½ glass shaved ice, filling 12-ounce glass with ginger ale.
A fountain drink of the plainest kind: acid, sugar, ice, carbonation. The only thing that can go wrong is dilution and flat ginger ale.
- Dissolve the sugar firstStir the lemon juice and sugar together before the ice goes in, or the granules sit undissolved at the bottom. A teaspoon of simple syrup does the same job with no stirring.
- Shaved ice, not cubesThe recipe calls for shaved ice, which chills almost instantly; it also melts fast and waters the drink down. Cracked or crushed ice is the nearest home equivalent, and cubes are acceptable if you drink it promptly.
- Half a glass of iceWith a 12-ounce glass that leaves roughly 5 to 6 ounces of clear headroom above the ice, though the ginger ale will run down into the shaved ice and take a little more. Fill by pouring down the side of the glass to keep the carbonation.
- The ginger aleGinger ales of the period ranged from sweet, dark golden styles to pale dry ones, so there is no single match for this drink. A dry ginger ale suits the lemon better than a sweet golden style; if you use a sweet one, cut the sugar.
- Lemon sizeLemons vary, so treat the half-lemon as approximate. Start with about 3 teaspoons of juice and taste before adding more.
- ServingMakes one 12-ounce glass. A straw and a long spoon suit it, and it is best drunk while the ice still holds.
- A note on the nameA note on garnish -- Other drinks in the cooler family are built on a long spiral of citrus peel hung inside the glass. This one has none, but a peel spiral is in keeping and adds aroma.
The "cooler" family of drinks — citrus, sugar, and a carbonated filler in a tall glass — belonged as much to the soda fountain as to the bar, and dispensers' manuals of this kind supplied non-alcoholic drinks alongside the saloon's repertoire. Saratoga Springs, New York, lent its name to a great many things sold on the strength of mineral-water respectability, from Saratoga chips to Saratoga water itself, and drink names invoking the resort are generally best read as marketing rather than geography. Pale dry ginger ale of the Belfast type was imported and imitated in America from the later nineteenth century onward and was a common fountain mixer, which is why a number of fountain formulas of the period end with the same instruction to fill the glass with it.