Home › At the Fountain › Vanilla Syrup (American Extract of Vanilla)
Vanilla Syrup (American Extract of Vanilla)
American Extract of Vanilla, 1 ½ ounces; Simple Syrup, 1 gallon; American Soda Foam, ½ ounce.
This is a fountain formula rather than a kitchen recipe: a bulk flavoring syrup meant to be pumped an ounce or two at a time into a glass and topped with carbonated water. The proportions scale down cleanly.
- Scaling it downOne gallon is 128 fluid ounces, so the working ratio is roughly 1.5 oz extract and 0.5 oz foam per 128 oz syrup. For a quart, use about 2¼ teaspoons (a scant ¾ tablespoon) of vanilla extract and a scant teaspoon of foam solution.
- What "simple syrup" meant at the fountainNot the light 1:1 syrup of a modern bar. Fountain simple syrup was a much heavier, nearly saturated syrup; period formularies commonly call for on the order of 5 to 6 pounds of sugar per gallon of water, which is what keeps it shelf-stable and sweet enough to survive dilution with soda water.
- American Extract of VanillaWritten as a named product, so this is most likely a supplier's or brand designation rather than a general category; it would have been an alcoholic extract of cured vanilla beans, sold alongside the cheaper vanillin and tonka-bean compounds of the period. Any good-quality pure vanilla extract stands in.
- Soda foamA foaming agent, historically a saponin solution from quillaia (soapbark) or an albumen preparation, added so the drink held a head when the carbonated stream hit it. Quillaia extract is still permitted as a beverage foaming agent in some jurisdictions but is regulated and not a general grocery item; the syrup works perfectly well without it, it simply looks flatter in the glass.
- Proportion in the glassStandard fountain practice was 1 to 1.5 fluid ounces of syrup per 8-ounce glass, filled with carbonated water. Adjust to taste, but this syrup is built to be diluted by roughly six to eight times.
- Yield and keepingA gallon makes something on the order of 90 to 120 drinks. At full fountain sugar strength, refrigerated and in a clean bottle, it keeps for months; a lighter 1:1 syrup is far more perishable and may spoil within a few weeks.
- Add the flavoring coldLet the syrup cool completely before stirring in the extract. Vanilla's aromatics are volatile and alcohol-carried, and both go off into the air if you add them to hot syrup.
Vanilla was the base note of the American soda fountain, the flavor a dispenser reached for by default and the one that quietly underpinned dozens of others, from the cream sodas to the phosphates. Formula books of this kind were written for druggists, who ran fountains from behind the same counter where they compounded prescriptions, and they read like pharmacy formularies because that is what they were: a list of parts, no method, on the assumption that the reader already knew how to boil and clarify a syrup. The half-ounce of foam is a reminder that a fountain drink was judged on its head as much as its taste. Fountains had been a fixture of American drugstores since the middle of the nineteenth century.