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Tonic Beer Syrup
American Concentrated Tonic Beer Syrup, 1 quart; Plain Syrup, 3 quarts.
This is a fountain dilution formula rather than a recipe in the domestic sense: a proprietary concentrate cut with sugar syrup to working strength. Everything here depends on what the concentrate was, which is the one thing the book does not tell you.
- The concentrate no longer exists"American Concentrated Tonic Beer Syrup" reads as the name of a proprietary extract bought in rather than compounded in the shop, though the book tells us nothing about it. Nothing sold today is a direct substitute; the nearest modern analogues are concentrated root beer, birch beer or sarsaparilla extracts, which are far stronger and are diluted according to their own label.
- Plain syrupFountain "plain syrup" or "simple syrup" of this period was heavier than the thin one-to-one syrup of a modern bar; period manuals generally aim at something in the region of 28 to 30 degrees Baume. Using a lighter syrup gives a watery drink and a shorter shelf life.
- The proportion is the whole instructionOne part concentrate to three parts plain syrup, giving a finished gallon. If you are working from a modern extract, ignore this ratio entirely and follow the strength the maker specifies, then adjust to taste.
- "Beer" means no alcoholTonic beer, root beer and birch beer at the fountain were carbonated soft drinks flavoured with root and bark extracts. There is no fermentation anywhere in this formula and no yeast to add.
- How it was servedFountain practice was about 1 to 1.5 fluid ounces of finished syrup in a glass, filled with cold carbonated water and stirred once. A gallon of syrup therefore yields roughly 85 to 128 drinks.
- Keeping itA syrup at true fountain density resists spoilage well, but a diluted or modern-strength one will not. Bottle it, refrigerate it, and discard it if it clouds, ropes or smells yeasty.
Soda fountain manuals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are full of entries exactly like this one — a line of arithmetic rather than a method — because the flavour work had already been done by a manufacturer. Dispensers bought concentrated extracts and "fountain fruits" from wholesale houses and their job was to cut them correctly, keep the syrup jars clean and draw the carbonated water at the right pressure. The family of drinks called beers at the fountain (root, birch, spruce, ginger, and tonic) descends from the small beers and herbal decoctions of American home brewing, and their popularity in this period is inseparable from the temperance movement, which gave the drugstore fountain its role as the respectable alternative to the saloon. "Tonic" here is advertising language of the era, implying a bracing, mildly medicinal virtue in the roots and barks; it makes no claim a modern label would be allowed to print.