Cold marble countertop , swiveling leather stools and pink Ne signs . A male child and a daughter smile timidly as they portion out a fizzing - sweet kickshaw through two prospicient straws . Behind the counter , a teenaged soda pop " tug " in his stylemark black bowtie and crisp clean paper cap pulls ripple carbonated pee into marvellous chill glasses , then blends in flavored syrups to make drug store darling like phosphates and egg creams ( no eggs , no cream , scores ofchocolate ) .
This is the Hellenic American soda fountain experience of the 1940s . At the nitty-gritty of it is the fountain itself . Back in the late 19th 100 , the grandestsodafountains swash long rows of silver gooseneck tap dispensing pure carbonated piss that could be bridge player - combine with more than 100 season syrups , many gain from natural fruits , herbs and barbed roots : birch , lemon tree , ginger , cerise , pomegranate tree , gooseberry , nutmeg , grape , vanilla extract , Eucalyptus amygdalina and rose .
Today , the close things to a soda spring that most of us recognize are the familiar ego - serve beverage machines in every loyal - nutrient restaurant and cafeteria . Instead of lot carbonated weewee and syrup individually to be flux by hand , modern pop fountains are program to shell out a accurate amount of fizzy water with sugary flavouring to accomplish the patented taste of Coke , Sprite , Dr. Pepper , Mountain Dew and dozens more transnational stain .
With health concerns over the gamey sugar content of most commercial-grade soft drink , many citizenry are opting to make their own sodas at home . The DIY soda roar is fire by the popularity of the soda makers , low-cost countertop appliances that can turn ordinary rap water into bubbling seltzer in seconds . adventuresome consumer can brew up their own dada concoction using flavors leave by the manufacturing business or whatever concoction they care .
The public appetency for fizzy drinks started with spa - leaver imbibing piddle from naturally bubbling springtime , which were thought to have curative powers . But the wad yield of washing soda only begin after people figured out how to make carbonated water in a machine . And that was harder to do than you ’d think .
The Science of Soda
Soda spring are really nothing more than automobile that deal carbonated water that ’s flavored with a sticky - sugared sirup . But how do you make that water house of cards ?
Carbonated water is regular water that ’s been supersaturated with carbon dioxide ( C02 ) gas . Although it sounds leisurely enough , it took hundred for scientist and inventors to master the interpersonal chemistry and engineer the technology to infuse air bubbles into average water . The challenge to coalesce CO2 with H2O is that the shape of their individual molecule make it almost impossible for the two nitty-gritty to bail bond [ origin : Discovery ] .
The two mystical ingredients to hold carbonated water , it turns out , are pressure and temperature . If carbon dioxide is amalgamate with very cold-blooded water in a plastered , high - pressing environment , the constituent will successfully combine . The first human to invent such a pressurize carbonation system was Johann Jacob Schweppe , a Swiss scientist who developed a hand - crank compression pump back in 1783 and whose name still graces bottles of fizzy ginger ale and social club soda [ source : Oatman - Stanford ] .
The scientific process of carbonation need piddle and carbon dioxide to be pressurize in a sealed chamber to seven times the normal atmospheric force per unit area . At that item , individual molecule of C02 get down to separate and surround themselves with water molecules [ beginning : Discovery ] . Under those uttermost condition , the gas fully dissolves in the liquidity .
The temperature of body of water at carbonation is also critical . Water that ’s carbonated at near - freeze temperature ( 32 degrees Fahrenheit or 0 degrees Celsius ) can hold five time as much C02as piss that ’s carbonate at 140 degrees F ( 60 degrees snow ) [ beginning : America ’s Test Kitchen ] .
Inside the pressure sensation chamber , carbonated water has perfectly no fizz . The bubbles only emerge when the liquid state is released from the chamber back into normal atmospheric pressure . Carbonated water contains 16,000 times more C02than regular water , roughly five " deoxyephedrine " of C02 for every methamphetamine of water [ source : Discovery ] . When you pop the jacket on a soda water bottle , the discharge of pressure causes all of those dissolved C02 molecule to become natural gas again and rush along to break loose through the surface of the liquid as house of cards .
Soda Fountains, Then and Now
Over the past 200 geezerhood , soda jet have develop from giant , way - sized machines run by teams of human beings to countertop devices that train and distribute lingua - titillation beverages in second .
After Jacob Schweppes contrive the hand - crank carbonator in the 1780s , the biggest technical challenge was isolating large volumes ofcarbon dioxidegas . A breakthrough come in 1832 , when English - have inventor John Matthews patented his ingenious soda outflow organization in New York City [ origin : Oatman - Stanford ] .
Matthews know that you could produce C02 by combiningsulfuric acidwith pulverise marble dust , which is productive in calcium carbonate . He build a sealed cast - iron box trace with lead and fill it with a precise blend of acid and crushed marble . The carbon dioxide generated by the chemical substance chemical reaction would rise through a water chamber for purification and into a pressurized carbonation tank car check insensate outpouring pee [ source : Yates ] .
In the former days , subterranean workers in Matthews ' New York sal soda outflow would manually agitate the tanks of spring water for a half - hour to fully carbonate the liquidness , which would then be piped to the saloon at street level above [ source : Yates ] .
counterpoint the primitive engineering of those first soda water fountains with the self - service units find in most fast - food for thought restaurants . Inside these tabletop machines , which can serve eight or more flavors of indulgent drink at once , is a pressurized C02 storage tank , a water pump and a carbonator . The C02 army tank and the water pump send pressurized gasoline and dusty water into the carbonator where the C02 dissolves completely .
When the pop dispenser tablet is pressed , carbonated water is released from the carbonator . At the same time , a 2d pump sends a squeeze of flavored syrup from one of several name - make bag loaded into the unit . The ratio of piddle to syrup is roughly five to one [ origin : Carbonics ] . The cocktail of carbonated weewee and syrup is blended right at the dispenser head as the product hits the loving cup .
Between the creation of the technology for aerated water and the modern pop outflow , which is basically a stand in a restaurant where you dish out yourself a drink , was a time when you acquire your soda from pill pusher who served up " medicative " confection with a spoonful of sugar and peck of freshen fizz .
Soda Fountain Culture
guess what life would have been like in New York City , Philadelphia or Atlanta , back in the summer of 1892 . Cities were stiflingly hot , and there was no such matter asair conditioningor infrigidation . Men wear off suits and charwoman walked around in long dresses with stratum of constricting undergarments . It must have been unendurable .
Then imagine stepping from the sun - baked street into a dark , cool establishment . Behind an flowery marble legal community put up mustachioed men in white pharmacist coats and starched collars mixing up the most alluring and novel beverages . You grade aCoca - Cola , the latest and capital miracle drink , promising instant vigour and rilievo from overturned abdomen and head ache .
Now opine that first sip — so wondrously cold , buzzing with bubbles , nearly electric with sweet-flavored and exotic flavors . Your thirst sate and your spirits revived , you ’re almost ready to brave the summertime rut . After one more soda .
The first American tonic fount was likely build in New York City in 1809 by a Yale interpersonal chemistry professor by the grand name of Benjamin Silliman [ informant : Oatman - Stanford ] . Like many other soda natural spring , Silliman ’s sell customers on the purport wellness benefits of carbonated water . Flavors like gingerroot and stinker were subdued and marketed as raw remedies .
Then the pharmacists took over . By the mid-19th 100 , the pharmacy counter was the hot spot for the up-to-the-minute and most creative soda look . Before the advent of a extremely regulated , commercialise drug industry , each chemist was free to mix up his own fizzing - sweet cocktails spiked with such spirit - lifting wonder drugs as caffeine , kola nuts and even cocaine ! Yup , in the later 1800s , cocaine was a common ingredient in so - called " bracers " or " nervines " intended to deliver surplus peppiness [ source : Oatman - Stanford ] .
But not everyone crowding into 1890s soda natural spring was a speed daimon . Hugely pop refreshment include the original milkshake ( carbonate piss , sweetened flavor Milk River and a raw bollock ! ) and the chicken feed cream soda , flavored soda water with a liquid ecstasy of vanilla ice ointment [ seed : Cooper Funderberg ] .
The 19th - hundred moderation movement also fueled the popularity of the soda fountain as a wholesome and healthy alternative to the sedan . By the turn of the 20th one C , every major urban center in America had thousands of street corner drug stores serving up bracing drinkable at the glorious soda fountain [ source : Cooper Funderberg ] .
The declination of soda outflow , starting in the thirties , has been find fault on many things : the rise of car culture and force back - through restaurants ; the ubiquity of home plate refrigeration ; even the end of Prohibition . By the seventies you could barely find a soda fountain . But a few honest-to-god - time diner have outlive the decades , and some new soda fountains have bulge up in the twenty-first century , deliberately reproducing the feel of bypast era [ source : Moskin ] .
Lots More Information
When I was in college , there was an old - fashioned drug depot on the main drag in town that had been in continuous operation since 1922 . By the clock time we arrive in the 1990s , the place was a apparition of its former glory , mostly parcel out prescription sell orthopedic shoes for local folks former enough to remember the scene at the now empty soda fountain . The only affair they still served up was a beggarly chocolate shake made with whole Milk River and generous scoops of ice cream . As tasty as it was , it made me plaint growing up in an epoch when the soda fountain had been stomped intimately to defunctness by firm - solid food chains and premade treats . I ’m excited to see the revitalization of classic soda fountain all across America , and particularly the pridefulness these new constitution take in their homemade , often artisanal ingredients and methods . Maybe it ’s time to get out and try one of those mysterious egg creams .
