We did the same thing only with the liquor in our friend’s dad’s bar. The idea being he wouldn’t miss a little out of each bottle. We called it rocket fuel and mixed it with Coke or whatever else we had on hand. It was undrinkable. Well, nearly so.
I never had the ?courage to try Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray (a celery soda). Its current semi-popularity is limited mostly to a few cities on the East Coast, but the concept dates back over 150 years. According to Wikipedia:
“Cel-Ray was so popular in the 1930s among New York City’s Jewish community that it earned the nickname “Jewish Champagne.””
Only vanilla, or lime, are available. Cherry coke didn’t catch on, and I’d have to buy it at the American foods store, which is pricy.
Sorry, I meant hand-mixed cherry, vanilla or chocolate. To me the canned version is just not the same, also the hand-mixed is less carbonated, which I prefer.
My father-in-law used to run the soda fountain at a swim club, and told stories of people who really like phosphoric acid, and always asked for more. Seems to be possible to make your own:
If you go back to the 1930s, the most common form of whiskey advertised was rye whiskey.
You can still get it, but it’s rare. (BTW, Canadian whiskey is not rye, though its taste is similar).
I don’t recall the brand at the moment, but I get bottled cucumber soda somewhat frequently. I think there’s sometimes celery, but since my lovely wife can’t have it, my eye skips over celery products.
Fentiman’s makes, or used to make, many unusual mixers and sodas. We tried Dandelion and Burdock - I can’t remember anything unusual about it, but it was a thing. The Curiosity Cola was very good, faintly medicinal, I thought (though I certainly never tried it) it would taste much like the original versions of Coca-Cola would have. Alas, I haven’t seen Fentiman’s sodas in years and years. An occasional bottle of their Victorian lemonade shows up in stores like Real Deals or Big Lots.
Sorry, thought that’s where I put it.
No worries. Easy mistake to make. 
We were pretty sure it didn’t belong in Politics & Elections, though.
Interesting about the phosphate thing. I was watching a rerun episode of ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ and Barney Fife described a lunch at the local soda fountain with “a lemon phosphate” on the side.
I was curious since I’ve never heard of such a thing.
What is the recipe? Isn’t the lemon already quite acidic by itself?
How about lemon posset? Anyone have one of those recently?
I couldn’t say, as my extent of knowledge was hearing it referenced in 3 words on that show.
I agree though: I would think the lemon would add enough kick to it on its own.
The “Early American drinks” above sound pretty tasty, actually.
Wish you could get malts here. Am sure you can somewhere, but they are not at all common. Floats are not as good as almost any other drink made with ice cream. I add malt to homemade bread and milky drinks.
Drinks made with barley, dandelion or burdock are consumed in the UK and are just okay. Also popular are non-carbonated lemon and orange “squash”, blackcurrant, some uncommon Scottish drinks (Tizer is a bit like Tahitian Treat, for example). How would you describe Tiger Malt?
I know a place with lots of sassafras trees and have made my own root beer. It’s good. Growing up a company made a pop they called “sarsaparilla”, but it tasted like root beer. I don’t know the difference. Probably alcohol. Ginger beer is better. This is usually made without alcohol which might further improve it. Fresh lime improves many drinks.
A popular Canadian grocery store puts out innovative products a few times a year. They are often very good or very bad. Sometimes both - I disliked their “Chocolate Cola”, my brother liked it a lot (though he also loves Vernors and buys Moxie when able).
When I was young, the thought of drinking liquid ice cream (like a shake or a malt) grossed me out. So when my family would go to a soda and ice cream palace, I’d always get a lime phosphate. I loved the flavor of lime and the aggressively bubbly soda went down well.
If I drank that nowadays I’d get a case of the bends that’d last two days.
Lemon vodka sounds pretty tasty…
They’re still quite popular in Wisconsin (especially at supper clubs), though they often make a variant which uses brandy rather than whiskey. (Brandy has, historically, just been very popular in Wisconsin.)
But, that popularity may well be a regional thing.
I don’t really like root beer floats, but once every few years I will drink one because it reminds me of my dad. I craved chocolate malts when I was pregnant. I would ask for extra, extra, extra malt. The drink would be gritty. I convinced myself that malt must be good for the babies.
This read on hot sodas is interesting. The beef and tomato drinks sound good to me. The malted clamette has me worried. Scroll about one-third down to see the menu. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/soda-fountain-drinks-recipes
not archaic
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Depends on where you shop. The corner bodega will likely only have Old Overshoe, but any decent liquor store should carry a dozen or more ryes. They are the only way to make a proper Manhattan.
In Colorado Springs, we’ve go the Axe and Oak distillery, which we went to four days ago with out of town guests. They have an extensive list of drinks, with names inspired by prohibition and local Colorado History, and they do several Old Fashioned. I’m linking a PDF of their drinks -
My friend had both the traditional Old Fashioned, as the Tobacco Old Fashioned, and said the TOF was amazing, especially with the burnt orange peel.
The excellent Townsends YouTube channel had an episode on “spruce beer” years ago, this is a type of beverage that is largely extinct in the United States, but was popular in colonial America and Canada.
Early colonists learned from Native Americans that a tea made from the needles of specific species of spruce, could prevent scurvy (this is because it was chock-full of vitamin C.) This was adapted over time by the Royal Navy and colonists into alcoholic “spruce beers” brewed with these needles and usually with molasses as well.
This particular product largely disappeared in the 19th century and has never really come back. While there are reinterpretations today, they are mostly of two types–spruce flavored barley-based or spruce-flavored sugar based alcoholic beverages, which neither is actually quite the same thing as the original true spruce beer.