Charles Alderton, a pharmacist at a Waco, Texas drug store, liked the way all the fruit syrup flavors smelled mixing in the air and built a 23-ingredient formula from the medicinal dispensary where he worked. Early ads made no attempt to hide it: “aids digestion and restores vim, vigor, and vitality.”
Ingredients (makes about 3 cups syrup)
- 1 cup prune juice
- 1/4 cup each licorice root and sarsaparilla root decoction (simmer 1 tablespoon root in 1 cup water 20 minutes, strain)
- 1 vanilla bean, scraped
- 1/2 teaspoon each ground clove and ground ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon almond extract, 2 teaspoons natural cherry extract
- 1 cup raw cane sugar, 1/2 cup water, 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
Method
- Prepare the licorice and sarsaparilla decoctions separately, strain, reserving 1/4 cup of each.
- Combine sugar and water in a saucepan, heat until dissolved.
- Add prune juice, both decoctions, vanilla seeds, clove, ginger, almond extract, and cherry extract. Simmer gently 15 minutes until slightly thickened.
- Remove from heat, add lemon juice, cool completely, and strain through fine mesh.
- To serve: stir 2 tablespoons syrup into 8 oz cold sparkling water over ice.
Prune juice has long been used for digestive regularity; licorice root was a standard digestive aid in Eclectic medicine. Refrigerate up to 3 weeks.
This recipe is one of twenty in The Forgotten Apothecary — our full digital cookbook of pharmacy-counter tonics, switchels, oxymels, and healing syrups.