"Brooklyn" Egg Cream versus Boston Egg Cream

The

EGG CREAM

also called the Boston Egg Cream

The syrup is made as follows:

Cream .......................................... fl. oz 4
Syrup ........................................... fl. oz. 12
Vanilla extract .............................. fl.dr. 1 or 2
Yolks of 4 eggs.

Rub cream with egg-yolks until perfectly smooth, then add the syrup and flavoring.

This is to be served like a plain "soda" syrup in a 12-ounce glass, but before handing over, (to the customer -ed.) sprinkle a little powdered spice, such as ground nutmeg, on the foam."

This recipe appears in "The Standard Manual of Soda and Other Beverages. A Treatise Especially Adapted to the Requirements of Druggist and Confectioners."

By A. Emil Hiss, Ph.G.
Chicago : G.P. Englehard & Company, 1897.

The syrup referred to is simple syrup. The drink was made with 1 to 2 fl. ozs. of "egg cream" in an 12 ounce glass. The glass was filled with soda water using the "needle" or thin stream of soda. This had the effect of producing a "head" on the drink. Without the "head" the drink the lacks the "immediacy" from which it's fame is derived.

I believe the original name to have been: the Boston Egg Cream. I have found that name in old manuals for drugstores on the preparation of "fountain drinks". That includes the one cited above. To New Yorkers there is a superstition that the Egg Cream can be made only with Fox's u-bet Chocolate Flavored Syrup. This author thinks any syrup will do. It's the high pressure carbonated water that is the making of the drink.

I have this recipe here as the soda fountain is no longer something one finds at the corner drugstore, at a Woolworth's or anywhere else in America.