Have any of you soda home-brewers tried making Coca-Cola with the “original recipe” published by NPR? I’d love to know how it tastes!
If you’re talking about the sugar cane kumquat drink that I mentioned earlier, I’ve only ever had it at this little hole in the wall place in Little Saigon, CA. It’s a fancier take on the fairly common sugar cane drink that you can find bottled in any Asian market. It’s not bottled, so depending on your definition, maybe it doesn’t really count as a soft drink. I wish they would bottle it, I’d be drinking it every single day. It’s not hard to make if you can track down some kumquats though. Get a can of sugar cane juice, cut up kumquats and soak in juice, pressing on the kumquats to release the pulp.
I do love the grass jelly drinks, but I think you need to grow up with it to fully appreciate it. Similarly, the sweet peanut drinks with whole peanuts on the bottom seem to weird out a lot of people. They’re often put in the soft drink section at the grocery stores, but they’re really more like dessert in a can to me.
Since “mass-produced” was not specified as a criteria, I submit DrunCola as an oddity I have tasted.
DrunCola is fermented cola, in this case using a base of HFCS Coca Cola. I essentially made it on a dare, and it was named by my niece. I started with 18 liters of Coke and two pounds of cane sugar, fermented with Champagne yeast; primary fermentation took about 2 weeks, as I recall, producing a very flat, very mildly alcoholic cola, somewhat reminiscent of a weak Rum & Coke.
After clarification, I racked it into a keg, then forgot about it for a while…after which, I was a trifle afraid to open it, so I continued to ignore it for about a year. Finally, with my family on hand for backup, I dared to crack the seal. It appeared unharmed by the aging process, so I gave it another taste. This time, the result was a pleasantly fizzy, mildly alcoholic, sweet cola flavor with hints of honey, similar to what you might get if you mixed a light mead with Coke.
Considering how demented the idea was to start with, I consider it a success.
I question this stuff. I’ve been to Epcot many times and have tried it like everyone else. Well, when I as in Italy for two weeks, I actually made an effort to find it, just for fun. Never saw a single trace of it over two weeks. Maybe I was looking in the wrong places? It was never next to the sodas anywhere I looked.
I love Ting too. Jarritos produces a grapefruit softdrink too but it is too sweet.
If I did my math right, for 18 L of liquid, with 2.85 kg of fermentable sugars (.9 in the sugar you added, the rest as corn syrup in the Coke), that should yield something with a potential in the 8-9% ABV range.
I was having this exact thought today as I stared at a case full of Jarritos sodas. My in-laws are in the Washington DC area with a significant population of South American immigrants and Inca Cola is easy to come by there. Meanwhile, I can’t go ten feet without finding a place selling Jarritos. Next time I’m visiting DC I should see if I can find any Jarritos sodas.
¡Claro!
Mannishewitz makes all kinds of kosher foods. This includes several varieties of borscht. Some executive got the bright idea that maybe people wanted to drink beet juice straight. They put it in glass iced tea bottles and called it (Swear to Uncle Cecil I am not making this up) Borscht Belt. If you collected enough labels and sent them in, you got a borscht belt buckle.
The product did not do well.
I’m particular to Peardrax (pear soda) and Cydrax (apple soda), which were available in the UK in the 70s and 80s but apparently now are only bottled in Trinidad and Tobago.
I love Lilt as as well, which is a pineapple and grapefruit juice soda. Also only available in the UK. You think that it would do well in the US, as we have had Fresca (grapefruit soda) for many years.
That sounds about right for the potential, but the actual yield was not that strong; maybe 4 or 5% ABV at most. It can be difficult to maintain fermentation in a fructose-heavy mix–my mead may take anywhere from 6 weeks to a couple of months to ferment to completion, but this concoction stopped after 2 weeks, aside from very minor action in the keg. If I ever do it again, I will take proper measurements, in the name of (Mad) Science.
Even with champagne yeast? I confess, I’ve never used any additional sugars in any of my fermentations, whether beer, cider, or mead, so I don’t know how well they ferment out. I would have thought the yeast would have just chewed right through that sucker.
So what’s the deal with fructose and yeast? I thoughts fructose was one of the more fermentable sugars, no? ETA: According to this, 96% of the sugars in HFCS are fermentable. Is this more of a nutrient issue?
Any one for Birch Beer?
Oh! I can’t believe I forgot–there’s a local Portland soda-brewing company (and pizzaria 
) that makes an *unbelievably *fantastic pear soda. Their sodas are brewed with all locally-grown fruit; their apple, cherry and boysenberry sodas are great (well, they’re all great), but their pear is absolutely my favorite. They’re called Hotlips!
The scary part is, the green bean casserole was one of the BETTER tasting sodas in that pack.
I just went into a soda shop and asked the owner for the nastiest soda he had. He said “if you can drink this whole thing, it’s free” and handed me a spruce beer. Blech. Couldn’t decide if it tasted more like pine sol or vicks vap-o-rub. Absolutely revolting. Free, though.
I’ve always thought so; my mead often requires a nutrient boost to kick-start it, and tends to ferment slowly. I occasionally have trouble with stuck fermentation, too. The DrunCola, on the other hand, may well have stopped short because of an unfavorable interaction between the yeast and some ingredient in the Coke besides the sugars.
That’s probably enough homebrew hijack, though. (Besides, you’re tempting me to repeat the experiment, and I’m not even out of the first batch yet.)
I have a SodaStream and make non-sweet or low-sweet sodas/spritzers. Slightly sweetened lemon with rosemary is a favorite. So is black currant.
Thanks for this GilaB.
Do you know if this can be done sugar free? Could the sugar be substituted with for example honey?
Yes, please! A.J. Stephans and Boylans make pretty good ones. I bought a liter bottle of Polar Diet Birch Beer for comparison, but the A.J. Stephans was the clear winner.