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Strawberry Floss Syrup
American Strawberry Floss, 1 quart; Plain Syrup, 4 quarts; American Fruit Acid, 1 ounce; American Strawberry Color, 1 ounce.
This is a compounding formula from the soda fountain trade rather than a kitchen recipe: three of the four items are proprietary products sold by a supply house, so the page is a ratio to be understood more than a set of instructions to follow.
- What "Floss" was"Strawberry Floss" was a proprietary flavouring preparation sold in bottles to fountain operators; its exact make-up is not given here and is not known from the page. Nothing sold under that name today is the same thing, and a strong strawberry syrup or extract stands in for it only loosely.
- Plain SyrupIn fountain books this generally means simple syrup, cooked or cold-dissolved at a high sugar concentration; the precise strength is not specified here. It is the bulk of the finished product; the flavour is one part in five.
- American Fruit AcidA solution of citric or tartaric acid in water, used to restore the tartness that heat-processed fruit flavours lose. One ounce in five quarts is a very small correction, and the exact strength of the proprietary solution is unknown, so the amount cannot be converted reliably.
- The colourOne ounce of a proprietary colouring solution in five quarts of syrup. The strength of the preparation is not stated, so the effective dose cannot be judged from the formula.
- UnitsRead as US measure, 1 quart is 32 fl oz. The recipe does not say whether the ounces of acid and colour are fluid ounces or weights; for liquid preparations fluid ounces are the likelier reading.
- Yield and dispensingThe formula makes 5 quarts, about 160 fl oz of finished syrup. At a rate of 1 to 1-1/2 oz of syrup per glass topped with carbonated water, that is roughly 105 to 160 drinks.
- Keeping itA syrup at this sugar concentration was held at room temperature in a covered fountain jar for weeks. If you build anything like it with fresh fruit rather than a preserved concentrate, treat it as perishable and refrigerate.
Formula collections like this one were published by soda fountain supply houses, and the recipes are as much sales literature as instruction: many of the capitalised ingredients are product lines the reader was expected to order by the case, though some, like Plain Syrup, were made in-house. The dispenser's job was not to make flavourings but to blend, dilute, acidify and colour them consistently, glass after glass, and the books drill that arithmetic — one part flavour to four parts plain syrup, with acid and colour as small corrections. Strawberry was one of the staple fountain flavours, and the reliance on separate acid and colour bottles reflects the era's concentrates, which came out of processing pale and flat-tasting. The heavy hand with dye belongs to the years before the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, when coal-tar colours were cheap, unrestricted and considered part of the appeal of a marble-counter drink; after 1906 they were regulated and only a short permitted list remained.