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Turkish Sherbet
Crushed peach, ½ ounce nectar syrup, ½ ounce orange syrup, ½ ounce; acid phosphate, 4 or 5 dashes. Fill mixture with shaved ice, stir in above and serve in tall punch glasses, with spoon and straws, garnish with pineapple, orange and cherry. You will find this a winner.
A fountain drink built in the glass rather than mixed in a shaker, and one that depends entirely on the quality of its syrups. Two of the four ingredients need translating before you can build it.
- The measurements are garbledThe punctuation is garbled -- three ½-ounce figures are given for three ingredients, and the commas have slipped, so the line most likely means ½ ounce each of crushed peach, nectar syrup and orange syrup. Read another way the quantities attach to the item following them, leaving the peach unmeasured; either way, adjust the fruit to taste.
- Ounces here are fluid ouncesFountain syrup was measured by the ounce, whether by graduated pitcher or pump stroke. Half an ounce is one tablespoon, so the two syrups together amount to only about 1 ounce of sweetener before the fruit.
- Crushed fruit is not fresh fruit"Crushed peach" was a commercial fountain product: peaches broken down and packed in heavy syrup, closer to a loose preserve than a purée. Fresh crushed peaches will taste thin and watery by comparison; use a good peach preserve or macerate the fruit in sugar first.
- Nectar syrupNot peach nectar. Fountain nectar syrup was a compound flavour rather than a single fruit; published formulas vary, but many combine vanilla and almond notes with a little fruit acid, and some are tinted. Substituting a modern 'nectar' juice changes the drink entirely; a vanilla syrup with a drop of almond extract is nearer the mark.
- Acid phosphateA dilute phosphoric acid solution, once a fountain staple and now sold again by specialist suppliers. It contributes sourness without citrus flavour, which is the point: it sharpens the syrups without making the drink taste of lemon. A dash is not a fixed measure; four or five will come to somewhere between ⅛ and ½ teaspoon.
- Shaved, not cubedThe glass is packed with shaved ice and the syrups are stirred down through it, so the ice is part of the texture rather than a chilling device. Cubes will not take up the syrup and the drink will separate into sweet bottom and plain top.
- YieldOne tall glass as served, though the recipe uses the plural 'tall punch glasses' and gives no capacity. Serve with both a long spoon and straws as directed; the spoon suggests the fruit garnish was meant to be eaten.
"Sherbet" reached English from the Turkish şerbet and Arabic sharbat, a chilled sweetened fruit drink, and it kept that meaning at the American soda fountain long after ice-cream makers had borrowed the word for a frozen dessert. Naming a drink "Turkish" in this period was chiefly a matter of fashion rather than provenance: the fountain trade traded heavily in exotic-sounding titles. The recipe may well reflect the working method of the era's dispenser, who is often said to have kept crushed fruits and flavouring syrups within arm's reach and produced many named drinks by recombining them, closing the entry with the kind of trade confidence one soda man offered another.