misc offbeat discoveries

In making soda, I mostly ignore recipes and try to learn the principles of what is needed. So after finding most everything needed lemon juice to counter the sweet, I took my pint bottle of fancy lemon juice and shot some into too-sweet but tasty commercial soda cans. Wow, did that make generic black cherry come alive... not only the acid but the trace of real fruit. So many sodapops tamed down for kids into limp candy are now improvable and even great.

Somewhere in here I talked about cranberry yeast soda, and how nice it is to pour into applesauce for a creamy fermented product with static bubbles. But it's tricky to get right, and I found it really pays to practice without the yeast. Scoop some sauce out of a jar, and replace by maybe 15% delightfully tart cran juice. Shake and try, and perhaps add more to see the perfect thickness that isn't runny and isn't thick... just barely physically drinkable. If you hit it JUST right it is a dreamy smoothie even without the bubbles.

Oh, I had another finding that I forgot.

Agave syrup is super healthy (very low glycemic index) yet quite expensive. Sam's Club is having a sale on their large Xagave brand... at least a few bucks off here for a week. Its taste may be too assertive for fruit sodas, but makes terrific root beer. I will try a cola with its mapley taste next.

P.S. I tried real coconut syrup but the oily bits kind of curdled in a soda. So I will use it up in a noncarbed cold coffee mocha which works fantastically... better than whipped cream.

Yeah, the agave syrup is $3 off per five pounds, limited to 10 bottles max. Still a bit expensive, but keep in mind you need less agave because it is more sweet than most anything. Maybe you have better options, like a cheaper non organic source, but for here it is worth stockpiling. Confirm sale on their web site for you local Sams.

To go with this, if you watch amazon over a week or two, you should see rootbeer extract pop up for incredible price by the dozen. Instead of $8 per zaterain bottle, it should appear for 1.50 if you watch long enough. Mix those 2 in the right proportions in carbed water and you get affordable premium rootbeer. I say premium because of the agave which just feels healthy and refreshing.

Banana-Coke! A combo that is made in heaven, or rather in my mind. Flavors go together like a banana split, or even better. Better than cherry coke, which is 2 bold tastes fighting each other. I use a tiny bottle of superconcentrated flavor (capella flavors) and 2 drops per can.

I started off putting random drops into lemon lime drinks, but in that case better to use something bold like a berry.

I'm getting toward the end of a zatarain root beer extract bottle, and wow it's getting spicier! And it started quite bland (to a lot of us here, responding to the amazon sale of them by the dozen). I know the insulting thought that is crossing your mind... that I didn't shake up the stuff that settles to the bottom.

Wrong... I shook it religiously every time til the bottom crud released from view. But then I let it sit for a moment, where I believe the spicy parts are quickly resettling. The reason is because I don't want to be wasting time shaking and opening it while my sodastream bottle is open and releasing c02, so I let it sit while I carbonate.

So I believe my approach is still the best, since the co2 would be lost forever but the root crud still gets consumed, but later. Gives me a little variation of taste so I don't get tired of the same extract.

daft said:

I use a tiny bottle of superconcentrated flavor (capella flavors) and 2 drops per can.

I started off putting random drops into lemon lime drinks, but in that case better to use something bold like a berry.

Click to expand...

By the way, the point of flavoring commercial sodas is mainly to make experiments for compatible flavors easier, since making the soda from scratch can be harder work and disappointing when you are trying fringe things with a lower success rate.

I tried natural/artificial LorAnn oils banana emulsion to make my fantastic Banana-Coke, and it's passible but not perfect like from Capella drops banana. Capella is artificial and it's ingredients read like anti-freeze, but you get 400 tasty doses in a bottle smaller than your little finger.

Peach Sprite! I put a heavy dose of Bakto natural peach flavoring into sprite, and it was the best tasting sprite ever (I normally hate the bland lemon lime drinks). The stronger flavors didn't seem compatible with sprite, so I am testing subtle ones that normally get lost or dominated in the presence of other flavors. Don't imagine natural Bakto has any real peach in it... they likely just put in other biological crap in it to call it natural.

Much as I think "natural" is a step backwards for superconcentrates (add grape extract and halve the shelf life) I think in larger concentrations it can be great. I have Monin syrups of all types that just seem lifeless. Also I have some frozen concentrate apple that is a bland nothing on it's own. But I tried combining the two, and it can be great... the apple fruitiness doesn't taste much but rounds out and supports the otherwise one dimensional flavored syrups to feel like something from the earth and nutritional.

Another note to self in this quiet thread and forum... I found it helps to sand the gripping surface of sodastream bottlecaps. They come all slippery, probably so you can't overtighten them. You have lots of leverage due to the wide mouth for accepting syrup.

But the slippery factor can be too much due to handling sticky syrup bottles and rinsing hands all the time. Especially it can be hard to open a tight cap slowly to prevent spitting liquid all over. The coarse threads tend to hold water, and there is a drain slit below the cap so that under pressure stuff sprays everywhere.

So I sanded with fine, but not fine enough paper. At first it was quite grooved, but then it wore smoother with use. Now I can finely modulate the uncapping to really slow down in the few degrees of turn where spraying is a danger. However I once in a while overtighten and may damage the seal ring or cap, so it is good I left one cap unsanded.

Another annoyance is the bottom of sodastream bottles have a void that gets filled up with rinse water. There are only 2 drain holes that don't help much. So before storing a filled bottle in the fridge, I shake it over a sink to release some of the water stuck in the bottom and the top threads. Still get drip marks on the floor on the way to the fridge.

Bottom line is I chanced on a simple combo made in heaven. I add a hefty dose (25%?) of real blackcurrent extract to ginger ale and ker-pow! You have to not let either dominate the other, but keep a strong duet going. I think blackcurrent or ginger alone is too one-note and needs more complexity. I used ribena concentrate shipped free from amazon and attained nirvana.

This is an unfamiliar pleasure in the US where blackcurrent growing has until recently been illegal due to misguided state laws. I admit I was not impressed that much by ribena drinks or soda in Europe (weak and one-note flavor), but then had some blackcurrent sorbet here under the french name casis... wowee! Actually I had to swirl it with blueberry sorbet for best results. Due to the expense I may have to fall back on walmart boysenberry syrup for my sodastream, but the above treat was great fun.

I like agave nectar in cream soda. I also do a habanero mojito soda that is sweetened with agave--super delicious.

Caramelizing the sugar you use in a root beer syrup adds some nice flavor notes.

hazelnut rootbeer: I sometimes make a rootbeer that is too light on concentrate. Instead of boosting it afterwards, this time I tried to whittle down my supply of rarely used other concentrates. The nut flavors have so far not worked well with anything, but on an impulse I threw in hazelnut superconcentrated drops from Capella and it was grreeaat!

daft said:

I tried natural/artificial LorAnn oils banana emulsion to make my fantastic Banana-Coke, and it's passible but not perfect like from Capella drops banana. Capella is artificial and it's ingredients read like anti-freeze, but you get 400 tasty doses in a bottle smaller than your little finger.

Click to expand...

Besides the natural affinity that banana flavor has with coke, I like the similar tasting horchata capella drops almost as well. This mimics a milky corn drink flavor from Mexico. This isn't some random experiment... these two fit coke much better than cherry or vanilla or whatever. It's like the way a banana split has coke=chocolate in a happy blend with banana and ice cream=horchata.

amaretto coke: added a couple Capella amaretto concentrate drops to a coke can... wheew, it was subtle but classy flavor that is my new favorite for a cola twist.

discussion: This is a product of a zillion failures... you don't just add what you think you like, but find it a rare miracle when something works. For instance, toasted almond concentrate was wretched in coke, and sweet watermelon was awful in sprite.

Amaretto in coke is like the mixed drink Dr. Pepper that uses Disaronno liqueur, coke and a splash of beer.

expresso coke a bit of an acquired taste, a couple drops capella expresso superconcentrate into the coke can was bitter at first but then fine.

So many failures that I should have kept track of, like capella irish creme or double chocolate and most berry and citrus flavors from bakto and capella. I will try and summarize best results in order here, and maybe edit this post instead of always reposting in future.

Coke: capella amaretto, capella banana, lorann oils banana, capella horchata, capella expresso, capella fig.

Sprite: bakto peach

RootBeer: capella hazelnut

I usually only buy pepsi as a last resort, but to make a recent purchase more palatable I tried spiking it with some flavor drops that didn't work well with coke. These are mostly artificial from Capella... and almost all of them seem to improve pepsi!

A couple "double chocolate" drops were just killer, and so was "sweet tangerine". I think the excessive sweetness of pepsi mates especially well with flavor superconcentrates which don't have sweetness of their own (a bit acrid on their own).

I'll round out my pepsi flavor additions here, editing in future refinements. Note this is not just personal taste, but the result of a ton of compatibility tests. For instance I love blueberry, but both the Bakto and Capella version of this is one of umpteen failures.

Pepsi BEST: capella harvest berry, apricot, double chocolate. GOOD: loran-oils banana, capella pomegranate, chocolate raspberry, honeydew melon.