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Solferino Syrup
American Grape Juice, 1 pint; Strawberry Juice, 1 pint; Granulated Sugar, 3 lbs. Mix, dissolve by heat, strain, and when cool add- Elixir Guarana, 4 ounces; Soda Foam, 1 ounce; Simple Syrup, 4 pints. Mix thoroughly, then add- Liquid Phosphate, 1 ounce.
A dispensing syrup from the druggist's soda fountain, meant to be drawn an ounce or so at a time into a glass and topped with carbonated water. Three of the ingredients are pharmacy stock rather than grocery items, so read the list before starting.
- Yield and doseThe finished batch runs to something over seven pints once the volume of the dissolved sugar is allowed for. At the standard fountain measure of 1 to 1.5 fluid ounces of syrup per 8-ounce glass, that is on the order of 80 to 120 drinks.
- Elixir GuaranaA 19th-century pharmacy preparation of powdered guarana seed in sweetened aromatic alcohol, valued as a caffeine tonic and headache remedy. It is not sold as such now; a modern guarana extract is far more concentrated and cannot be swapped ounce for ounce.
- Soda FoamFountain trade name for a saponin solution, usually extracted from quillaia (soapbark), sold to make the drink head up when the carbonated water hit it. Food-grade quillaia extract is still used in commercial beverages but is dosed in parts per million, not ounces per gallon.
- Liquid PhosphateAcid phosphate, a dilute phosphoric acid solution with calcium, magnesium and potassium salts. It supplies the sour bite that fruit juice alone will not, and it is still made for cocktail and soda work. Ordinary phosphoric acid is not the same thing.
- Simple SyrupAt the fountain this meant a heavy syrup, considerably denser than the 1:1 syrup of a modern bar. Using a thin 1:1 syrup here will give a noticeably weaker, less stable product.
- Dissolve by heat, then coolThe three pounds of sugar go into the juice over gentle heat only until dissolved, then the pan comes off. Boiling would drive off the fresh fruit character and darken the colour. The recipe has the remaining ingredients going in only when the syrup is cool; the guarana elixir is alcoholic, so heat would drive some of that off.
- Add the phosphate lastThe acid goes in after everything else is combined, as the recipe directs. Adding it to hot syrup would invert some of the sugar; the recipe itself gives no reason for the order.
- KeepingThere is no preservative beyond the sugar and the small amount of alcohol from the elixir. Keeping it cold and treating it as a few weeks' supply is the safe course.
Solferino was a colour before it was a drink. The Battle of Solferino in June 1859 gave its name, as the Battle of Magenta had earlier that same month, to one of the brilliant new aniline dyes coming out of the European laboratories, a deep purplish red. Fountain syrups were routinely named for their colour, so the name is plausibly a colour card rather than any claim of Italian origin. The rest of the formula is pure American drugstore: guarana elixir and acid phosphate were both sold as mild restoratives, the phosphate for "nerve exhaustion" and the guarana for headache, and the soda fountain in a pharmacy was as much a dispensary counter as a treat shop. Books of this kind were trade manuals, printed for the dispenser who compounded his own syrups by the gallon and needed a formula that would hold up in a jar behind the marble.