dominated, offering cheaper, colder beverages and more flavors to choose from, thanks to the ever-expanding range of flavoring syrups being created. As in Europe, the exact origin of the use of flavoring syrup in America is unclear, but it was certainly happening in 1807, when Townsend Speakman began stirring up his Nephite Julep, a mix of fruit juice and soda water, for the customers of his Philadelphia apothecary store. By the middle of the 1800s, visitors to the soda fountains faced a bewildering range of flavoring options to liven up their soda water. There were familiar fruit flavors, exotic plants, alcoholic concoctions, andâsince fountains were often located in pharmaciesâeven the medical ingredients that druggists would use to cook up the lotions, pills, and potions that they sold to the public with unsubstantiated claims about their benefits.
Soda drinkers could spice up their fizzy water with enduring favorites such as wintergreen, vanilla, or cherry, or they could opt for something more unusual such as hock, syrup of violets, or celery. To keep people interested, soda fountain operators, who were now nicknamed soda jerks due to the jerking motion they made when pumping out water for their customers, started mixing up new taste combinations for customers to try.Some mixed sweet cream into the cool bubbling water to create the original cream sodas. Others made chocolate syrups and used them to create chocolate-flavored soda waters that proved a big hit with women. Men tended to opt for the egg sodas, in which soda water and uncooked egg white were stirred together to produce a beverage with a foamy head. The egg sodas eventually spawned the original version of the egg cream, where cream, egg yolk, and soda met. Other soda jerks reached for the chemical cabinets of their stores and chucked in phosphoric acid to create phosphates, a type of soda that offered a pleasing acidic tang.
It was a fad business. For years egg cream would be all the rage, then everyone would go nuts for phosphates before dumping them for some new exciting soda combination. This constant stream of new spins on soda in nineteenth-century America was driven by competition, with fountains hoping to win business by whipping up flavors that couldnât be found elsewhere. Yet while the soda jerks and pharmacists concocted new, head-turning combinations, there were plenty of enduring favorites such as orange, lemon, vanilla, and the 1800s wonder plant sarsaparilla.
Native to Central America, the sarsaparilla plant had long been regarded by the native people as having medicinal properties, and when the first samples were taken back to Europe in the 1500s it gained a reputation as a cure for syphilis. After the initial excitement about its discovery died down, the plant fell into disuse for many years until the patent medicine boom of the 1800s reignited interest in its medical potential. Physicians reassessed sarsaparilla and declared that as well as curing syphilis, it was also effective against scrofula and skin ailments. Some went so far as to add cancer, rheumatism, hepatitis, and gout to the list of diseases this wonder plant could treat. In 1820 the renewed hype was convincing enough to earn sarsaparilla syrup a place in the first United States Pharmacopeia, which also included soda water among its definitive list of medicines. For soda fountains this was a double win. Not only did they get to promote the health benefits of their carbonated water, but the addition of sarsaparilla syrup also let them effortlessly tap into the appeal of the patent medicine. Soon sarsaparilla was one of the most popular flavors at the fountains, providing an early indication of how the soda business would soon embrace both the cookbook of quack medicine and its advertising rulebook too.
3
The Medicine Men
The soda fountain wasnât the only health craze taking America by storm in the early 1800s. As the fountains arrived on Main Street, thousands
Soda drinkers could spice up their fizzy water with enduring favorites such as wintergreen, vanilla, or cherry, or they could opt for something more unusual such as hock, syrup of violets, or celery. To keep people interested, soda fountain operators, who were now nicknamed soda jerks due to the jerking motion they made when pumping out water for their customers, started mixing up new taste combinations for customers to try.Some mixed sweet cream into the cool bubbling water to create the original cream sodas. Others made chocolate syrups and used them to create chocolate-flavored soda waters that proved a big hit with women. Men tended to opt for the egg sodas, in which soda water and uncooked egg white were stirred together to produce a beverage with a foamy head. The egg sodas eventually spawned the original version of the egg cream, where cream, egg yolk, and soda met. Other soda jerks reached for the chemical cabinets of their stores and chucked in phosphoric acid to create phosphates, a type of soda that offered a pleasing acidic tang.
It was a fad business. For years egg cream would be all the rage, then everyone would go nuts for phosphates before dumping them for some new exciting soda combination. This constant stream of new spins on soda in nineteenth-century America was driven by competition, with fountains hoping to win business by whipping up flavors that couldnât be found elsewhere. Yet while the soda jerks and pharmacists concocted new, head-turning combinations, there were plenty of enduring favorites such as orange, lemon, vanilla, and the 1800s wonder plant sarsaparilla.
Native to Central America, the sarsaparilla plant had long been regarded by the native people as having medicinal properties, and when the first samples were taken back to Europe in the 1500s it gained a reputation as a cure for syphilis. After the initial excitement about its discovery died down, the plant fell into disuse for many years until the patent medicine boom of the 1800s reignited interest in its medical potential. Physicians reassessed sarsaparilla and declared that as well as curing syphilis, it was also effective against scrofula and skin ailments. Some went so far as to add cancer, rheumatism, hepatitis, and gout to the list of diseases this wonder plant could treat. In 1820 the renewed hype was convincing enough to earn sarsaparilla syrup a place in the first United States Pharmacopeia, which also included soda water among its definitive list of medicines. For soda fountains this was a double win. Not only did they get to promote the health benefits of their carbonated water, but the addition of sarsaparilla syrup also let them effortlessly tap into the appeal of the patent medicine. Soon sarsaparilla was one of the most popular flavors at the fountains, providing an early indication of how the soda business would soon embrace both the cookbook of quack medicine and its advertising rulebook too.
3
The Medicine Men
The soda fountain wasnât the only health craze taking America by storm in the early 1800s. As the fountains arrived on Main Street, thousands
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