Drinks by theme

Old-Fashioned Sodas: Soda Fountain Drinks, Root Beer and Ginger Beer

Old-fashioned sodas from period manuals: phosphates, the egg cream, ice cream sodas, root beer and sarsaparilla, ginger beer, spruce beer and kvass.

Updated October 30, 2026

“Saxe’s Large Canopy Top Apparatus. 30 feet long, with 35 foot Counter.” Plate in Saxe’s New Guide, or Hints to Soda Water Dispensers (1894).

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A clear cherry-red phosphate in a straight tumbler set in a nickel holder with a loop handle stands beside a white dish of fresh cherries and a long spoon on black marble before an ochre wall.

Always alcohol-free

Sodas & Soft Drinks · 50 min total

Cherry Phosphate, the Soda Fountain Cherry Sour

Fresh cherry syrup, cold soda water and acid phosphate added last, stirred in a short glass: the soda fountain’s cherry sour, after Saxe’s dispensers’ guide of 1894.

A straight-sided glass of light cocoa-brown egg cream under a tall white foam head, with a long spoon, stands beside a pale blue seltzer siphon and a white saucer on a steel counter against a burgundy wall.

Always alcohol-free

Sodas & Soft Drinks · 5 min total

Egg Cream: Chocolate Syrup, Milk and Seltzer

Chocolate syrup, cold milk and seltzer stirred to a white head, plus the 1897 egg cream that really did have egg yolks and cream in it, topped with nutmeg.

Dark reddish-brown sparkling root beer with a tan band of foam in a tall straight glass on white marble, beside a corked bottle of syrup, before a carved wooden soda fountain back bar.

Always alcohol-free

Sodas & Soft Drinks · 40 min total

Fountain Root Beer, Syrup and Soda Water

Root beer extract stirred into a heavy sugar syrup and drawn with very cold soda water, as an 1897 soda manual made it: never fermented, and alcohol-free with an alcohol-free extract.

What were old-fashioned sodas?

Flavored syrups drawn with carbonated water at a drugstore soda fountain, and the home-brewed sodas that came before them: ginger beer, spruce beer, root beer and kvass. The fountain drinks had no alcohol; the brewed ones, worked with yeast in a sealed bottle, had a little.

The fountain began in the pharmacy. A. Emil Hiss’s Standard Manual of Soda and Other Beverages (Chicago, 1897), written for druggists and confectioners, says the trade started as “an attempt of early chemists to imitate famous medicinal springs,” and that soda water, “on account of its presumed medicinal character,” had always been part of the druggist’s stock. The word “presumed” is his.

The dispensers’ manuals, James W. Tufts’s Book of Directions (Boston, 1890), De Forest Saxe’s New Guide (Chicago, 1894) and Hiss’s, give the phosphates, soured with acid phosphate from the druggist’s shelf; the egg drinks; the ice cream sodas; and root beer drawn from a syrup and drunk at once. In winter the same counter served hot ginger and malted milk.

Home brewing was older and less predictable. A New York druggist’s handbill of about 1804 sold essence of spruce for a “most wholesome agreeable table beer,” and a Russian household book of 1887 made bread kvass in a day. In 1916 a Philadelphia pharmacist bottled root beer at home “strictly according to directions” and measured up to 1.52 per cent alcohol after eleven days.

Most recipes below come from the manuals and household books of their day; the modern ones, like our sarsaparilla root beer syrup, say so.

An attempt of early chemists to imitate famous medicinal springs.

A. Emil Hiss, The Standard Manual of Soda and Other Beverages (Chicago, 1897)

What is a phosphate soda?

A fruit syrup and soda water sharpened with a spoonful of acid phosphate, the soda fountain’s sour. Shake in a whole egg and it becomes an egg phosphate.

A short, slightly tapered tumbler of transparent coral-red orange phosphate stands beside half a blood orange, a corked bottle of red syrup and a long spoon on hexagonal mosaic tiles before navy paneling.

Always alcohol-free

Sodas & Soft Drinks · 55 min total

Orange Phosphate, the Red Orange Soda Fountain Drink

Blood orange and raspberry syrup, plain soda water and a teaspoon of acid phosphate, stirred and served still: Saxe’s red orange phosphate from Chicago, 1894.

A tall straight glass of pale yellow, foamy lemon egg phosphate with a dusting of grated nutmeg on its white head.

Always alcohol-free

Sodas & Soft Drinks · 45 min total

Lemon Egg Phosphate, the Soda Fountain Sour

Lemon syrup, a whole egg and half a teaspoon of acid phosphate, shaken with ice and topped with soda: the soda fountain’s sour drink from What to Drink (1920).

A fluted tumbler of pale, fizzing lime rickey with cracked ice and a piece of lime stands beside a metal hand squeezer and two squeezed lime halves on a zinc counter.

Always alcohol-free

Sodas & Soft Drinks · 40 min total

Lime Rickey, the Soda Fountain Rickey Without Gin

A whole lime squeezed over pineapple syrup, then cracked ice and a fill of soda water: the alcohol-free lime rickey from a San Francisco druggists’ journal of 1912.

A heavy tumbler of still, pale cloudy lemonade with an upright mint sprig stands beside a wooden pestle and a curl of lemon peel on a white marble soda-fountain counter.

Always alcohol-free

Sodas & Soft Drinks · 5 min total

Mint Lemonade, the Soda Fountain Way

A peeled lemon pounded in the glass with sugar and fresh mint, shaken with ice and water and strained over a new sprig: one glass of mint lemonade from a 1910 soda-fountain formula.

A large plain tumbler of cloudy pale yellow lemonade with a layer of white foam and rising bubbles beside a squeezed lemon half and a saucer of white powder on a dark stone counter.

Always alcohol-free

Sodas & Soft Drinks · 3 min total

Soda Nectar, Fizzy Lemonade by the Glass

The juice of a lemon, three-quarters of a tumbler of water and sugar, with a little baking soda stirred in last so it foams: Jerry Thomas’s Soda Nectar of 1862.

What is an egg cream made of?

Today, chocolate syrup, milk and seltzer, with no egg and no cream. The 1897 manual’s egg cream had both, drawn with soda water; the ice cream soda put a scoop in the glass.

A tall glass of pale golden-yellow Goldenade under a fine white foam head beside an open nickel shaker cup and a lemon half on dark walnut, with unlabeled apothecary jars behind.

Always alcohol-free

Sodas & Soft Drinks · 5 min total

Goldenade, Lemon and Egg Yolk Soda

An egg yolk shaken with powdered sugar, fresh lemon juice and ice, then filled with soda and poured back and forth: the alcohol-free Goldenade of an 1897 soda fountain manual.

A creamy pale pink strawberry ice cream soda with white melting streaks and a scoop high in the glass under an unbroken pink foam cap, a long spoon in the glass and three strawberries on a small white plate before yellow tiles.

Always alcohol-free

Sodas & Soft Drinks · 50 min total

Strawberry Ice Cream Soda from the Fountain

Fresh strawberry syrup, soda water and a big scoop of plain ice cream floating in the middle, with a long spoon: the soda fountain’s ice cream soda as the 1890s drew it.

Did old-fashioned root beer have alcohol?

Root beer drawn from a syrup with soda water had none worth measuring. Brewed at home with yeast in a sealed bottle, it reached 1.52 per cent in eleven days in a 1916 test. Our sarsaparilla syrup and spruce soda have no yeast.

A tall glass of deep amber-brown root beer with rising bubbles and a thin tan foam on a slate board, beside a heap of pale chopped sarsaparilla root and a knob of fresh ginger with one cut end, against dark green tiles.

Alcohol-free version

Sodas & Soft Drinks · 1 hr 35 min total

Homemade Root Beer Syrup with Sarsaparilla and Ginger

A modern root syrup of sarsaparilla, roasted dandelion root, fresh ginger and dark brown sugar, served the 1890s fountain way with cold soda water. No sassafras, no fermenting.

A straight-sided tumbler of clear pale gold ginger beer with fine bubbles and a thin white foam, beside a knob of fresh ginger and half a lemon on a chipped green-painted counter.

Alcohol-free version

Sodas & Soft Drinks · 1 hr 5 min total

Alcohol-Free Ginger Beer, the Fountain Way

Fresh ginger syrup, lemon juice and cold soda water, never fermented: an alcohol-free ginger beer after the street fountains of 1850s London.

Two tall glasses of pale amber sparkling spruce soda over ice on a gray soapstone counter against white tiles, beside an unlabeled brown dropper bottle and a white jug with one dark molasses drip down its side.

Alcohol-free version

Sodas & Soft Drinks · 5 min total

Spruce Soda with Molasses

Simple syrup, a spoonful of molasses and a drop of food-grade spruce essence over ice, topped with soda water: the flavors of old spruce beer with no yeast and no alcohol.

Which old sodas were brewed with yeast?

Spruce beer and kvass were bottled while the yeast was still working, which gave them their fizz and a little alcohol. Our alcohol-free kvass skips the yeast.

A glass of golden amber spruce beer with a thin white head on a rough cellar shelf against whitewashed brick, beside an empty glass jug with an airlock and pale sediment, and a capped brown plastic soda bottle.

Wine, Beer & Mead · 21 days total

Spruce Beer from an 1804 New York Handbill

Molasses, water and essence of spruce, worked with yeast for three or four days, rested, then bottled for ten: a New York druggist’s spruce beer of about 1804, at one gallon.

A tall glass and capped clear plastic bottle hold hazy amber-brown kvass with a thin foam beside dried rye bread on a wooden board against an ochre wall.

Wine, Beer & Mead · 2 days 15 hr total

Bread Kvass, the 24-Hour Rye Kvass from 1887

Dried rye bread steeped in boiling water, sweetened with dark treacle, started with a little yeast and bottled with two raisins: Elena Molokhovets’s 1887 kvass, at a tenth of her batch.

A tall glass of clear amber sparkling kvass with lemon and mint stands beside a half-full jug, rye bread and half a lemon on pale wood against a sage wall.

Alcohol-free version

Sodas & Soft Drinks · 3 hr 30 min total

Alcohol-Free Bread Kvass with Lemon and Mint

Dried rye bread and fresh mint steeped in boiling water, sweetened with dark treacle and sharpened with lemon, then lifted with soda water: Molokhovets’s 1887 kvass made without yeast.

What did soda fountains sell in winter?

Hot drinks from the same counter, served in mugs: hot ginger, hot egg lemonade and malted milk seasoned with salt and pepper. None has any alcohol.

A heavy white china mug of clear amber hot ginger on a marble soda counter beside two square crackers, with a mirrored back bar behind.

Always alcohol-free

Hot Drinks · 35 min total

Hot Ginger, the Soda Fountain’s Winter Drink

A strong ginger syrup drawn into a mug and filled with hot water, no fizz at all: the soda fountain’s Hot Ginger, from Saxe’s 1894 guide for dispensers.

A speckled stoneware mug of frothy pale yellow egg lemonade dusted with nutmeg on a pine table, beside a steel shaker, half a lemon and a nutmeg grater.

Always alcohol-free

Hot Drinks · 20 min total

Hot Egg Lemonade from the Soda Fountain

A whole egg shaken with strong lemon syrup and acid phosphate, then filled up with hot water and dusted with nutmeg: the winter fountain’s egg drink from 1894.

A footed white china cup of opaque, pale beige hot malted milk flecked with black pepper on a gray soapstone counter, beside square soda crackers, glass salt and pepper shakers and a lidded cracker jar.

Always alcohol-free

Hot Drinks · 5 min total

Hot Malted Milk with Salt and Pepper

Malted milk stirred into hot water and seasoned with salt and pepper in place of sugar, with soda crackers on the side: the 1890s soda fountain’s savory mug.

The full list