THE LURE OF THE “FIZZ.”
AN AMERICAN SODA FOUNTAIN IN MANILA SELLING BEVERAGES FROM THE SOUTH
Few things appeal to us and capture our fancy like a bubbling spring. As it comes sparkling out of the cool depths of the earth it smiles up at us in the friendliest way, like some shy, living creature, inviting us to come and slake our thirst. The mere sight of a spring usually makes us thirsty at once, no matter how recently we may have filled up on tap water or well water.
No little of the charm of the soda fountain is due to the rush and bubble hissing and swirling and foaming into the glass. And who can tell how much of the fatal seductiveness of equally effervescent but less innocent beverages, with their crimson sparkle or creamy foam, or “purple bubbles winking on the brim,” may be due to their hypnotic appeal to our fascinated eye, as we “look upon the wine when it is red, when it moveth itself aright?”
Certain it is that the most popular and irresistible liquors, from lowly lager to lordly champagne, are those that sparkle and foam and bite, with the keen, fresh tang of carbonic acid gas. Even whiskey has to be mixed with something sparkling, “soda” or “Polly,” in order to make it attractive to the eye or even to the palate, except of the educated or jaded minority.
No small amount of the charm of “fizzy” drinks, whether innocent or hurtful, lies in the “fizz.” The motto, “All fizz abandon, ye who enter here!” over the door of every saloon and bar, if enforced, would well nigh sound the death knell of drunkenness.—Woods Hutchinson, A. M., M. D., in Everybody’s Magazine.