Daily Archives: November 10, 2011

“That does sound good, Al.  But you know what?”  Here I pause, to build the suspense.  “I’m going to have what I had last time!”  And Al, despite his 84 years, knows exactly what that is.  A cherry phosphate.

There’s a precise order to what follows.  First, he squirts a liberal dose of sweet, scarlet, cherry syrup into a tall glass.  Then, he ceremoniously brings forth the small glass bottle with phosphate from its hiding place and shakes a few drops into the syrup.  He peers up at me quizzically till I tell him to stop.  The more phosphate, the sourer the soda. (more…)