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Violade
Violet syrup, 1 ounce; plain soda, 8 ounces. Stir, then draw lemon syrup 1 ounce. Pour into another tumbler half filled with shaven ice, then add lemon and orange, each 2 slices.
A soda-fountain drink from the era when every drugstore kept a rack of flavoring syrups. It scales to one tall glass and takes about a minute to build.
- The ounces are fluid ounces1 oz of syrup is 2 tablespoons; 8 oz of soda is a cup. The finished drink is roughly 10 oz of liquid, and the recipe wants the serving tumbler half filled with shaven ice, so you need a tall glass with room for both.
- "Plain soda" means carbonated waterAt the fountain this was unflavored, unsweetened soda water drawn from the pressurized tank. Seltzer or club soda is the direct equivalent; skip anything already sweetened.
- Violet syrupNineteenth-century fountain violet was made by infusing violet flowers in syrup, and also from purchased violet essences with colouring added. Modern floral syrups sold for cocktails work; sweetness varies, so taste before committing to the full ounce.
- Lemon last, and expect a color changeLemon last -- The recipe adds the lemon syrup after the soda. If your violet syrup is a real flower infusion, its anthocyanin pigment will shift from blue-violet toward pink as the acid goes in; an artificially coloured syrup will not change.
- Shaven iceFountain ice was shaved off a block, closer to snow than to cubes. Crushed ice from a bag or a few seconds in a blender gets you there; it chills fast and dilutes fast, so serve immediately.
- The two-tumbler pourThe drink is built in one glass and then poured into a second half filled with ice, which is how the transfer does the mixing.
- YieldOne drink. Garnish with two slices each of lemon and orange, cut thin enough to sit in the glass rather than perch on the rim.
Violet was one of the standard fountain flavors of the American soda dispenser's repertoire, alongside vanilla, sarsaparilla, lemon and orange, and it belongs to a wider Victorian and Edwardian taste for floral confectionery — candied violets, violet pastilles, violet-scented sweets and perfumes were all fashionable on both sides of the Atlantic. Formularies like this one were trade manuals: they were written for the clerk behind the marble counter, who was expected to keep dozens of syrups on hand and to build showy drinks on demand, which is why the instructions read as a sequence of drawn measures rather than as a home recipe. The name "Violade" follows the same pattern as lemonade and orangeade, and the lemon syrup here is doing double duty, sharpening a syrup that is otherwise mostly sugar and perfume.