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Tenderfoot Punch
Two ounces rum syrup, dash angostura bitters, shaved ice, ½ glass, spoonful nesselrode pudding. Fill glass with grape juice. Top off with sliced fruits.
A fountain drink, not a cocktail: the "rum" here is flavoring syrup, and the whole thing is built in the glass over shaved ice. It is closer to a dessert sundae you drink than to a punch.
- Rum syrupSoda-fountain rum syrup was usually simple syrup flavored with rum extract or essence, though some period formulas did use actual rum. It is no longer stocked; the nearest thing is a heavy sugar syrup with a few drops of rum extract, or a bottled non-alcoholic rum flavoring syrup from a coffee supplier.
- The glassFountain punches were generally served in a tall glass of roughly 10-12 oz. "½ glass" of shaved ice presumably means fill it to the halfway mark, which is what leaves room for the two ounces of syrup, the pudding and the juice.
- Nesselrode puddingA frozen custard of chestnut puree, candied fruit and often maraschino, set in a mold. It is the reason the drink works, supplying the body and richness. Nothing sold today matches it; a spoonful of good vanilla ice cream stirred with chopped candied fruit and a little chestnut puree is the practical stand-in.
- Grape juicePeriod fountain grape juice was unfermented Concord, sweet and strongly perfumed. Ordinary bottled Concord juice is the right choice; white or European varietal juices will taste thin against the syrup.
- BittersA dash is a short shake from the bottle's shaker top, a few drops. Angostura is about 45 percent alcohol, so a dash contributes only a trace amount.
- Order of buildingSyrup and bitters first, then ice, then the pudding, then juice poured slowly down the side so the frozen spoonful is not driven straight to the bottom. Sliced fruit goes on last as a garnish rather than being stirred in.
- Yield and serviceOne glass, one drink. Serve with both a long spoon and a straw; the pudding will not go up a straw.
The name is the joke: a tenderfoot was American slang from the mining and cattle West for a newcomer, someone not yet toughened. Fountain manuals of this era are full of such drinks, mimicking bar service in syrup and juice for temperance patrons, minors and Sunday trade, and the genre expanded sharply as local dry laws spread and again under national Prohibition. The luxurious element is the Nesselrode pudding, a frozen chestnut custard generally credited to the household of Count Karl Robert von Nesselrode, the Russian foreign minister, and standard in nineteenth-century American dessert menus. Its appearance here shows how far the better fountains had moved from plain soda water: the dispenser was running a small confectionery kitchen as well as a syrup counter.