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Strawberry Lime Cordial
Two-thirds glass shaved ice, 1 ounce lime juice, 2 ounces strawberry syrup, Fill with soda, drawing solid, stir gently. Straws.
A soda-fountain formula written for a dispenser with a syrup pump and a carbonated-water draft arm. Everything translates to a home kitchen once you know what the fountain terms mean.
- "Drawing solid"Fountain taps had a coarse stream and a fine stream; "solid" is the coarse one, a steady heavy flow that fills the glass without whipping up foam. At home, tilt the glass and pour chilled soda water down the side in one continuous pour rather than a sputtering trickle.
- The glassFountain glasses of the period ran roughly 8 to 12 ounces. Two-thirds of that in shaved ice plus the 3 ounces of syrup and juice leaves only a modest amount of room for the soda; scale the syrup if your glass is larger.
- Shaved ice, not cubesShaved or finely crushed ice is what makes the drink cold instantly and keeps the syrup suspended. Cubes leave the syrup sitting in a dense layer at the bottom and the top half tasting of plain soda.
- Strawberry syrupFountain syrup was a heavy sugar syrup carrying crushed fruit or fruit juice, thicker and sweeter than many modern bottled soda syrups. If you use a thin commercial syrup, expect a weaker, sharper drink and increase it slightly.
- Lime juiceOne ounce is two tablespoons, roughly the yield of a single average lime. Fresh will taste brighter; bottled lime juice reads flat against the sugar.
- Cordial here means no alcoholIn American fountain usage a cordial is a sweetened fruit drink, not a liqueur. Nothing in this glass is spirituous.
- Stir gently, and onceStir gently -- The recipe asks only for a gentle stir: enough to marry the syrup and juice without knocking the carbonation out.
- YieldOne drink. Serve immediately with straws, as written; it goes dull within a few minutes.
The soda fountain was a druggist's fixture before it was a candy-store one, and its vocabulary shows it: syrups were "drawn," doses were measured in ounces, and drinks like this were listed as cordials, phosphates and tonics in a register borrowed from the pharmacy counter. Strawberry syrup could be made from preserved fruit or from strawberry-flavored stock year round, while lime juice gave the acid bite that kept a heavily sweetened glass from cloying rickey. Books of this kind were trade manuals, written for the dispenser working at speed behind marble and nickel, which is why the instructions read as a sequence of motions rather than a recipe: ice, juice, syrup, soda, stir, straws.