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Saratoga Lemonade
Juice of 1 lemon, 2 spoonfuls sugar, ¼ glass cracked ice. Shake, strain and fill with Saratoga mineral water.
A one-glass fountain drink written in the shorthand a soda clerk could read at a glance. The only real work is deciding what "Saratoga mineral water" means on your shelf.
- The spoonA fountain "spoonful" of granulated sugar is usually taken as a bar spoon, somewhere between a teaspoon and a tablespoon depending on the manual. Two spoonfuls may read modest for a whole lemon; taste and adjust rather than trusting the number.
- Glass sizeThe recipe does not say what glass is meant. If you assume an ordinary fountain glass of around 10 to 12 oz, "¼ glass cracked ice" works out at roughly 3 oz of ice; the shake dissolves the sugar as well as chilling.
- Saratoga waterThe recipe means the naturally carbonated saline-alkaline spring water bottled at Saratoga Springs, New York — noticeably mineral and slightly salty. Any strongly mineralised sparkling water stands in; plain seltzer gives you a thinner, sweeter drink.
- Shake then strainStraining is deliberate: the ice and any pulp are left behind so the mineral water is added to a clear, cold base. Pour the strained liquid into a fresh glass, add ice if you want it, then top up.
- Keep the fizzAdd the carbonated water last and pour it down the side of the glass in one motion. Shaking or stirring after it goes in flattens the drink, which is the whole point of using a mineral water rather than still.
- YieldOne drink. Lemon juice varies; a single lemon may give anywhere from about 2 to 3 tablespoons, so a second lemon for a large glass is not unreasonable.
Saratoga Springs was among the best-known American spa towns of the nineteenth century, and its naturally carbonated springs were bottled and shipped widely, so a soda fountain in a distant city could stock "Saratoga water" as a branded ingredient. Drinks named for their mineral water rather than their method are common in fountain manuals of the period — the water was the selling point, carrying the health associations of the spa into an ordinary glass of lemonade. Recipes like this one sit at the point where the drugstore soda counter was still half pharmacy, selling mineral water as a mild tonic and sweetening it to make it drinkable.