Cola making and the SodaStream

[pfisterfarm]

My wife just got me a SodaStream for Christmas. I've been looking around for flavoring recipes and I had a couple of questions...

- I've tried the Coca-Cola recipe from one of Todd Wilbur's Top Secret Recipes books... has anyone tried this? The taste of the sugar is a little overpowering. Wasn't sure if I made it right

- I've looked at the Open Cola/Open Soda sites. I'm a little concerned about handling the phosphorous acid. Is it a big deal to leave it out when making colas?

 

[daft]

The following gets at the essence of coke without the umpteen fussy ingredients and cooking. I use agave syrup which is already kinda cola like but healthy... The source of (mostly) decocainized coca extract (same as coca cola uses) is in my old thread on cherry cola, and they sent me some discount info I could dig up. The cola extract I refer to was capella supercontrate, where a bottle smaller than a little finger offers a multi year supply.

OK, I found some Bolivian Blast Off Juice in my mailbox today. Darn it, I didn't get the discount because probably I forgot to type in the special code... so $60 for a legal coca extract pint, delivered. At least no swat team came with it; I thought I might get a free cancer screening in the form of a body cavity search. The fat bottle with narrow neck won't pour properly... either drools down the bottle or glugs too fast. The spills I make now may leave a trace of something that drug dogs could give false alarms on.

Gee, it's smell was familiar... whiskey and medicine odor. Sort of like Nytol knockout stuff for colds. Sipping a bit gave an unpleasant medicine taste carried in something like whiskey. Wham, it numbs your mouth and tongue in an instant... stronger than kava. Before making cola with it, I first tried it in a soda I am very attuned to... lemon colada. OK, it did seem to add kind of a coke-like backbone to it, but didn't seem to belong in a fruity drink.

Then I added coca extract to carbed water with artificial cola extract, a dash of froze lemonade concentrate, and agave syrup... yeah! Not exactly coke, but very satisfying in a sense of that edgy backbone that is missing in fruity-tooty drinks. What are the proportions? I dunno, the cocajuice amount is uncontrollable and I guess I went lighter than normal with agave syrup which can otherwise smother things honeylike. I later tried to make a cherry cola where the cherry and agave dominated even a lot of coca juice... blah.

I will try to recreate the working plain cola (maybe with half HFCS and half agave) and post results in my sodastream syrup thread. I am so miffed by the price and not getting the discount that I probably won't get another. I have a line on pepsin extract used for pepsi, and have even thought about just adding a chewable aspirin to kola extract for a bit of that mediciney counterbalance.

 

[pfisterfarm]

Thanks for your response. If you have discount info on the coca, I'd be interested in it. I may try and order it some time.

Thanks again!

 

[daft]

The coca extract order page is at http://www.mysteriousbolivian.com/servlet/the-162/Coca-Leaves-Extract-NovoAndina/Detail

You just missed a 25% off four day superbowl sale. You can get 10% off in february with coupon code= Super or 15% off for $100+ order with code= Bowl.

I just made another batch and feel my cola drops are letting me down... I get great coca taste but weak cola.

 

[daft]

You just missed a 25% off four day superbowl sale.

They sent me another 25% off coup code of AMOR til 2/18, but it's still too expensive to repeat my business. I can't get cola extract under $8, so content myself with adding capella drops to storebought coke cans. I now favor flavors amaretto, horchata, and fig... but wrote up more under some "discovery" topic.

 

[pfisterfarm]

Thanks for the code... I've gone ahead and placed an order. How long did it take to arrive?

 

[daft]

They sent mine in a flat priority mail (2 day flat rate) packet which ripped wide open against the base of the bottle.

I just tried something crazy to pep up my cola that worked very well. Couple glugs of coca extract, couple squirts of lime juice, enough agave syrup to balance the bitterness but not really seem sweet, couple drops of my weak cola extract, and a couple glugs of tart black cherry extract. The bold cherry made up for my timid cola flavor. I bet I will never rediscover these perfect proportions again (put in a half liter sodastream bubble water by eye).