Fancy a Purple Cow? How about a Black and White?
In Murder Among Friends, Leon Iraklidis teaches Deloris about both soda jerk lingo and how to make all manner of soda fountain drinks. But where did we learn about them?
We found a great article on soda jerk slang here: “The Lost Lingo of New York City’s Soda Jerks.” We took several of Leon’s sayings from this article. There are lots of soda fountain drink recipes scattered across the internet, but this website has a nice compilation: “Big List of Old Fashioned Soda Fountain Drink Recipes.”
There is one soda fountain drink you won’t find anywhere else, as we made up for Murder Among Friends, though it’s based on a soda jerk term from New York City. At soda fountains in New York City, the lingo for a glass of water was named a ‘Hudson River Ale’ after the river that bisects the city. Kansas City has a different river, so we had Leon offer Deloris some ‘Missouri River Ale.’
The other soda fountain drink we had a lot of fun writing about was the ‘Purple Cow,’ also known as the Catawaba Flip. Since Kansas City was a noted cowtown, a fountain drink about cows seems particularly appropriate for the city. Plus, it’s such a fun-looking drink.