Puzzle Description:

A soda jerk at the counter of the pharmacy. Cherry phosphate coming up.

#1: Norma Dee (norm0908) on Dec 10, 2017

Neat. I absolutely loved soda fountains and could not pass one up. It's really sad they are no longer around. Might be a few still going. Does anybody know of any?

Asked Google and I guess there are still some in operation.

None in my area that I know of, Norma. It would be cool to see what one is like. The first time I ever heard of a soda jerk was in art class when my teacher was explaining what was going on in the famous painting, Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper. You can see the jerk in the link below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nighthawks#/media/File:Nighthawks_by_Edward_Hopper_1942.jpg

Well done Brian. Love the fountain. :)

The other day, I ran across a mention of a soda shop in an old book and was intrigued by the idea of a shop based on something so trivial in today's world. Of course I knew about them, but I'd never really pondered it.

Soda fountains were originally in pharmacies because they required chemistry knowledge. Through the 1800s the carbonated water was made on site by combining soda (sodium carbonate or sodium bicarbonate) with an acid - often sulfuric acid (aqua regia).

For a long time, sodas were necessarily made to order in shops because bottling technology was not good enough to contain the pressure. It wasn't until the 1900s that automated bottle-making machines were made that could hold the pressure.

I can't imagine that any of the soda fountains still in use make their own carbonated water chemically. I'm sure they just infuse water with CO2 gas just like the Coke machine in your local McDonalds.

Cool puzzle!

And this jerk was "discovered" when he was just a star at a huge Hollywood studio!

Nice idea. Fun color solve.

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