Fountain drink

A soda fountain is a device that dispenses carbonated soft drinks, called fountain drinks. They can be found in restaurants, concession stands and other locations such as convenience stores. The device combines flavored syrup or syrup concentrate and carbon dioxide with chilled and purified water to make soft drinks, either manually, or in a vending machine which is essentially an automated soda fountain that is operated using a soda gun. Today, the syrup often is pumped from a special container called a bag-in-box (BIB).

A soda fountain is also referred to as a postmix machine in some markets. Any brand of soft drink that is available as postmix syrup may be dispensed by a fountain.

The term may also refer to a small eating establishment or lunch counter, common from the late 19th century until the mid-20th century, often inside a drugstore or other business, where a soda jerk served carbonated beverages, ice cream, and sometimes light meals. The soda jerk's fountain generally dispensed only unflavored carbonated water, to which various syrups were added by hand.

The soda fountain was an attempt to replicate mineral waters that bubbled up from the Earth. Many civilizations believed that drinking and/or bathing in these mineral waters cured diseases, and large industries often sprang up around hot springs, such as Bath in England or the many onsen of Japan. Early scientists tried to create effervescent waters with curative powers, including Robert Boyle, Friedrich Hoffmann, Jean Baptiste van Helmont, William Brownrigg, Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, and David Macbride. In the early 1770s, Swedish chemist Torbern Bergman and English scientist Joseph Priestley invented equipment for saturating water with carbon dioxide. In 1774 John Mervin Nooth demonstrated an apparatus that improved upon Priestley's design. In 1807 Henry Thompson received the first British patent for a method of impregnating water with carbon dioxide. This was commonly called soda water, although it contained no soda.

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