DIY Soft Drinks | Hacker News Reader

DIY Soft Drinks

blinry.org

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One pro-tip as I now somehow have a commercial bottling license these days: get pre-hydrated gum Arabic. Much easier to work with. Almost everybody who messes this up will make the mistake at the hydrating the gum Arabic stage. Blend it with any dry ingredients like sugar before using.

If you can’t source it, I’m not going to tell you that you SHOULD pretend to be a bottling company and ask a gum provider to send you some free samples, but you could and the amount they send you will last the rest of your life. TIC gums is pretty awesome and if you’re into frozen desserts has some incredible gum mixtures for ice creams, sorbets, etc.

Also, consider just using water soluble flavor concentrates and skipping emulsification all together. That’s what most pros do and it’s why Sprite isn’t cloudy like it would be if you used oils. My favorite suppliers that sell in consumer and pro-sumer qtys are Apex Flavors and Nature’s Flavors.

This probably won’t work for Cola as I think some of those ingredients have all of their flavor molecules in the oils, but as a general rule, if you can buy it at the store and it is clear, it is made using water soluble. If it is brown it probably isn’t, hence the caramel color additive.

Posts like this are why I read HN comments first.

Posts like this remind we how much better it is to be as part of a large trading bloc to be able to easily order/sample these sort of things, rather than it likely being a pain in the arse to get locally.

IDK if it'd apply here, but there are technically laws on the books in the US against price and purchase discrimination for grocers. It was specifically one of the things Lina Khan was investigating on the way out of office and something I believe she's going to be using for the NYC grocery stores.

A food seller isn't allowed to cut out a grocer because they are too small. However, I believe they get around this today by having minimum order sizes that make it impossible for a small grocer to handle.

That's effectively how my small hometown grocer was driven out of business. The suppliers refused to work with them because they wanted them to order huge amounts of product that wouldn't work for my hometown with 300 people. So, the people running the store ended up just buying products from either costco or another grocery store a town over. The price hike they had to apply was simply too much for the local folk who ultimately also went to the nearby towns to save money instead of shopping locally.

And I'm guessing, without a local grocery store at the very least, your hometown is also a dying entity?

It's mixed. Several people ended up moving back as some of the older population died off. One new resident retired there and is running a mini-grocery store now as both a hobby and for some of the hunters that come through the town.

But the town is dying/dead. There's really only 1 major business in town and the school. It's surrounded by farm land.

In my father's day, it had everything from a hardware store, full service garage, a bowling ally, movie theater, restaurant, and dance hall. All that is gone now.

In my youth the restaurant and grocery store were still around. You had to call ahead to the restaurant as they would only open in a call ahead fashion.

can't several small hometown grocers get together to be able to make that volume/quantity? Surely that would be better than just buying from costco?

Parent comment said their hometown had 300 people, which I can't imagine would support more than one or, at most, two grocery stores.

That’s exactly what small distributors are for.

A lot of small co-op groceries and even food co-ops that are more like ordering clubs used to use a company called UNFI to put in their orders but I think they focused more on organic and other high end items but they were willing to service smaller stores so yeah it's probable. There was also IGA (independent grocers association) but I think most of the stores associated with that brand/network locally have closed down so not sure if it's a thing anymore. Many of the independent convenience stores here stock almost all of their groceries at Aldi.

I lived in a town with only IGA and Piggly-Wiggly. (And Dollar General, of course). IGA was the best. I really appreciate what they were doing. It appears to still exist.

https://www.iga.com/about

It seems entirely reasonable to me to quote larger prices per item, even much larger prices, for smaller quantities. Or even outright refuse to sell in small quantities.

I mean, my grocer doesn't sell individual beans either. So why should wholesalers be forced?

They don't? I'm in London, and my local grocer will happily sell me one bean if I want. I've bought 1 bird chilli several times.

Sure, if the chili peppers or the beans are not packaged, you could buy as little as you want. Sometimes you might get funny looks, sometimes they'll give you the bean for free as it's not worth the hassle to sell an individual bean.

But what about prepackaged beans, like 500 gram pack? You can't open the package and expect to pay for part of it. Sometimes the beans are packaged by the grocery store with their branding. That's the same as not letting you buy an individual bean.

And it's great that lores found a grocer that caters to their needs. Even less of a reason to make a law to force everyone to do so.

Greatly detailed here:

https://youtu.be/odhVF_xLIQA?t=338

In this case, Pepsi has reduced promotions and increased wholesale cost for "small groceries" which in this case was a regional grocer with ~1000 of stores across 10 states. If Pepsi is strong arming regional giants like that, imagine how the ant of a real local grocer feels. They are algorithmically getting destroyed

Why did you get a commercial bottling license?

Well after software I wanted a life that involved a lot less computer usage and a lot more being on my feet. So now I sell beverages via a few food trucks and also syrups people can use to make draft sodas/mocktails. We make everything ourselves because we’re all-natural everything, with the lone exception of Coke products because you just can’t get people to drink anything else.

I basically went from no real knowledge to being able to develop commercial-scale beverages and walk them through all phases of production.

The money’s not as good as software (but decent) and being active rather than sedentary with most of my time has done wonders for my health and mood. Man was not meant to sit in one place for long hours daily and I’m just not a gym rat no matter how many times I tried so I just reengineered my life.

That's a really inspiring story to me. Do you have any more info about your business e.g website or blog? (I realise these are computer things and exactly what you were moving away from.)

Seconded that I'd love to hear more.

A couple years back I bought a "cooking from your garden" book that introduced my family to shrubs, and since then we've been making a lot of home made drinks. We mostly do different types of shrubs and tepeches. I've found that doing better than store bought isn't very hard, but I have no desire to try and scale any of my recipes.

The other thing I used to do before I had a kid was make really fancy alcoholic snacks. Super labor intensive, but really good. For example I made a jello piña colada. I'd sweeten canned coconut cream with some white sugar on the stove, add gelatin, and some rum. let it cool a bit. Drain a can of pineapples and keep the juice, use the juice to make pineapple jello again mixed with rum, with a piece of pineapple in the middle. Join the two jellos when they are both half set. (I used silicone molds.)

Tada! Bougie piña colada jello shots.

With a kid now I am limiting my creativity to non-alcoholic drinks. 90% of the shrub recipes online are absurdly basic. Honestly doing "better than average" is easy because the bar is so damn low.

You should get your website up and running and start writing and tell others not only how you made it, but also why. What you felt in this change in your life etc.

I guess a big part of this is figuring out how to make money doing that. I wonder how did you get there.

I've always had the desire to make soft drinks and I have a similar concern about how we are sitting the entire day...

>with the lone exception of Coke products because you just can’t get people to drink anything else.

gotta say I don't like Pepsi, but I love Jarritos Cola and Fritz-Kola, they're both bitter enough. Most other Colas I've had in the U.S are too darn sweet.

Fritz-Kola used to be even more bitter, until they dropped the caffeine content to sane levels.

> Well after software I wanted a life that involved a lot less computer usage and a lot more being on my feet.

Oh man, that's so me at this stage of my life. But I cannot easily get out of the rat race, with family responsibilities and mortgages and all...

Same here. Despite having intentions of not improving lifestyle with income (so I could be FIRE), it happened anyway with kids. I love my kids (of course) but they are so much more expensive than I ever could have imagined. Cost of living has just skyrocketed in the past 6 or 7 years (cue the 11 year old saying "Siiiiiixxxxx Seeeevvvvvennnn") and wages haven't changed much. Unless something radically changes, I'm chained to this desk for at least then next 10 years.

What are your, um, favorite gum providers?

Small scale: modernist pantry. Commercial scale: Ingredion’s TIC gums. Their pre-hydrated gum arabic is great.

Is the Modernist Pantry gum arabic pre hydrated?

I’m not sure, but they do sell some pre-hydrated gums and usually call them “perfected”. They are largely buying in commercial quantities and re-packaging for restaurant-scale use with their gums because a lot of the bigger ingredient companies that make the best products won’t sell in smaller than 50 lb (or sometimes even much larger) increments.

Pre-hydrated gums are usually just hydrated and then spray dried ones.

I've used their "perfected" xanthan gum which is a separate SKU from their regular xanthan gum. At least for gum arabic they seem to only offer one SKU, so I'm guessing it's not prehydrated.

All gum arabica comes from Sudan. When the US imposed sanctions on Sudan, this product was exempted.

Ha yeah. That whole thing is kind of crazy.

What do you use to bottle things in, like what bottles?

Perrier bottles can be emptied and resealed. I didn't see anything in the article about carbonation.

Bottles are easy to find. I homebrew my own ginger ale and use Grolsch-style sealing caps to withstand the pressure. Buy them on Amazon.

Depends what I’m bottling and if it needs to be shelf stable. There’s actually just as much work in the packaging of a beverage as the product sometimes.

Another fun use for gum arabic is making watercolor paints, you can do it with your kids sourcing the pigment from different soils. pour water and let the heavy big particle fall to the bottom and source the small ones from the top and mix some ingredients

Pigment from soils?

Not sure what you are asking. The stone age way of making paint is to find some place where the ground has a weird colour, dig it up, clean it and you have a pigment.

Even to this day many of our paint pigments are mined this way. Red/yellow ochre, umber, sienna.

If what you are asking is the dirt in question geologically speaking a soil? Sometimes, sometimes not. It can be a sediment or a regolith too. But in the more general laymen sense callig any dirt from the ground a soil is not too mistaken.

Yeah I’ll probably stick with coca cola corporation

Okay, but user070223 is talking about watercolour paints as an alternative use of gum arabic.

Now i’m just recognising this might be a language issue: watercolour paints are a type of paint to paint with on paper using a brush dipped in water. If you ever seen kids paint with brushes and paper most likely they were using watercolour paint.

Ochre is from a type of clay

Oh! I knew they sold it for art but not why.

Thank you for helping contribute to reduced trust in the society. Fuck them big dudes, amirite?

He's contributed to improving trust on this forum. And idk if you've ever gotten commercial samples before but he's right, the amount they give you is immaterial to hurting them and can be material to you.

Also, he said that he's somehow stumbled into somehow having a commercial bottling license. If him, why not us?

> the amount they give you is immaterial to hurting them and can be material to you.

It’s immaterial to Apple if I stole an iPhone from the Apple Store too.

> Also, he said that he's somehow stumbled into somehow having a commercial bottling license. If him, why not us?

Because he is a commercial bottler who is sampling from different supplier that he intends to source from for his business.

> Blend it with any dry ingredients like sugar before using.

That's the key.

I'm not an expert - and have only experience making/mixing liquids for cocktails - but Gum Arabic (often used to add a thicker mouthfeel in sugar syrups) isn't a great emulsifier but needs to be full homogenised with the oils before adding to more liquid - exceptionally high speed, aggressive blending for longer than it looks like is needed, to create tiny droplets which the gum arabic then stabilises, or the oil will end up separating after a few hours/days.

Sucros Esters, Propylene Glycol, or Polysorbate 80 (which I haven't used) probably do a better job but only Sucros Esters could be considered 'natural'

I wonder how they pulled off Crystal Pepsi.

A neat trick, even if nobody cared.

The 90's were a magical place. Best we can do now is Clear Pepsi.

Why? Is it just not put caramel coloring in it? It didn't taste like actual Pepsi to me, which I suppose might be more difficult?

The OP said (in the last paragraph) that the ingredients that go into colas are the kind that make the drink cloudy. Crystal Pepsi was clear, even without the coloring.

Presumably it's because they changed to use flavors that are completely water-soluble. That would explain a difference in taste.

(I know they tasted different with my eyes open, but I never did a blind taste test between the two. It would be interesting to know how close they really got to the original flavor.)

Yeah, that would be my guess. Crystal Pepsi tastes noticeably different than regular, and caramel color is used in such small qtys that it is considered borderline flavorless.

If you look at popular grapefruit sodas Fresca is clear, but Squirt is cloudy because Fresca uses water soluble flavors and Squirt uses oils. (Squirt is the better product by far IMO because a lot of the grapefruit flavor is from the oil in the peel.)

It’s always possible the geniuses at the flavor houses Pepsi buys from have some magic I don’t know about though. But I’ve never heard of any way to make emulsified oils clear, since they refract light differently.

Nile Red recreated "cola" drink close enough to the good stuff and of course published the recipe. Might want to try that :)

Darcy O'Neil's "Art of Drink" videos cover this:

The Science Behind Crystal Pepsi: Microemulsion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppufxi1pHu8

>If you've ever asked the question: How do they make Crystal Pepsi clear? Here is your answer. The method is surprisingly simple and uses a technique to make a microemulsion where the droplet size of the flavour oil is around 1 micron. This method comes directly from Pepsi, via a patent they filed in 1989, providing a detailed method for producing oil-in-water microemulsions for beverages. The patent specifically discusses clear colas and methods for producing the same.

>This video is an introduction to creating microemulsions and provides a process for doing it at home with simple equipment and easily available ingredients.

Also:

Emulsion FAQ (Beverages)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRf4ehRPpok

Stable Flavour Emulsion for Soda Syrups and Non Alcoholic Drinks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYToDpVAeMU

Caramel Colouring, Flavouring and Emulsifying Syrup

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7OvogWyMDo

What's the use in ice cream?

My ice cream is just ... ice cream. Cream, milk, sugar.

As an emulsifier, allowing the fats and the water to mix better. I _think_ it also might help to trap air bubbles. It helps you turn on the creaminess-knob

Egg yolk is the usual emulsifier, in the UK at least - ice cream is essentially a frozen whipped custard.

That’s also an option. I usually make mine without due to friends with egg allergies and vegan friends

Several reasons. Texture and freeze-thaw stability are the main reasons. The latter being an issue for home use mainly.

Your freezer’s self-defrost works by getting a little warm and then cold again. That causes ice crystals to melt and re-freeze, which is the opposite of what you want. Gums help with that and that’s why it’s in most of the ones you see at the grocery store.

They also can be used to give body to things that don’t have as much protein, like sorbets.

If I may ask a question…

Nature’s flavors sells both extracts and concentrates that are water soluble. For a brown soda, like rootbeer, is an alcohol based extract preferred or should I go the concentrate route?

I’ve been toying with the idea of making commercial style rootbeer at home, and making soda from roots just doesn’t cut it (even if it’s pretty good). I’ve been eying Nature’s flavors for a while, but since I’m not in the US it will be VERY expensive.

There are no domestics providers of food safe wintergreen or sassafras.

Thanks, and cool career switch!

That’s a good question and it probably depends on the ingredient. Most of what we call flavors are a mix of volatile aromatic compounds. Some of those are fat soluble. Some water soluble.

Alcohol is great for extracting as it can pull out both.

The flavor extracted depends on what you’re extracting with and even the concentration.

So really, you’d have to buy it and try. I’ve only ever made root beer a couple times for my own experimentation with oil.

Nature’s Flavors is awesome though and you might ask them.

I recently started getting into homemade ClubMate production. The goal was to create a drink that has caffeine, less sugar than regular mate and is still tasty.

It took me 4-5 tries to get to a recipe that tastes good. Earlier tries involved cooking the mate, which led to a bitter taste. Cold brewing led to way better results.

Here is my current recipe for 5 bottles (á 0,5l):

  - 60g mate tea leaves (coarse) [1]
  - 500ml water
  - 65g cane sugar
  - 1 squeezed lemon
  - soda water

  1. Add 60g of mate to a 500ml bottle and fill up the rest with water
  2. Let it sit in the fridge for 12-24h
  3. Then strain the mate from the liquid
  4. Use a filter cloth or a tea towel (soak with water first)   to filter out the remaining suspended solids
  5. Put sugar and the lemon juice together into a pot and start caramelizing the sugar
  6. Then add the filtered mate tea and take the pot from the stove
  7. Now distribute it equally on the 5 bottles and fill up the rest with soda

The mate tastes less sweet than the original mate, but is still a great drink to keep you awake.

[1] Mate tea that I'm using: https://www.amazon.com/Playadito-Traditional-Colonia-Liebig-...

I've never found the right tea leaves. Most of them were to bitter and some had just a totally different profile than the original clubmate. How close are the ones you are using?

For me using the cold brew method instead of cooking the leaves had the biggest effect on the bitterness.

The taste goes in the direction of ClubMate, but has a stronger tea taste than the original ClubMate. I think reasons for that are the reduced amount of sugar and the fact that ClubMate uses natural flavor in their tea extract.

Buying different brands will change the taste even more.

Isn't this a tannins issue? I've not done mate before but with black tea my understanding is brewed tea cooled down is bitter while tea just left in cold water in the fridge is smooth because brewing it releases tannins.

Water-soluble taste compounds all dissolve with similar time profiles (all other things being equal), which are exponential curves that asymptote at zero and saturation. The time constant and the saturation level are the true variables, and saturation is "chosen" by the molecule itself, but when you superimpose exponential curves, a slower-dissolving "bad" taste can be minimized by finding the right balance point between "enough" of the good solutes before the unwanted solute rises much.

"All things being equal" = that time constant is itself a function of temperature, so lower temperatures slow down (spread out) the process, allowing a broader "balance point" at which to stop the process.

IOW, if you're brewing a hot cup of tea, leaving the bag in an extra few minutes can really increase the bitterness without making it much "darker", but even a few extra hours in the fridge-brewed tea is no big deal.

Maybe try contacting Meta Mate [1] for recommendations. AFAIK they are supplying mate leaves to multiple mate soft drink manufacturers.

[1] https://www.metamateberlin.de/

Love that you made homemade Club Mate! My favorite soda by far. I didn’t realize it was just tea before now. They have made a sugar free version now as well, but that not as cool as making your own

The sugar free Club Mate is probably the only soda where I'm not satisfied with it instead of the sugar version. Somethings just missing in the mix of it, doesn't have the bite that makes the sugar version satisfying.

> They have made a sugar free version now as well, but that not as cool as making your own

That version (Club Mate Zero) is hard to get in supermarkets as well, at least where I’m living in Germany. I usually order it online.

Late capitalism is when a traditional tea recipe is referred to as "homemade ClubMate (R)".

That's my approach to recreate a soft drink (ClubMate), like OP is trying to recreate Coke (etc.). Would love to also learn something about the traditional recipe

sure, but what makes it ClubMate instead of just Mate Tea? Either way, thanks for the recipe. I might try that.

I would say drinking it cold, carbonated, with caramelized sugar and lemon juice, out of a bottle instead of brewed as a tea from a calabaza.

Club Mate has a different taste than traditionally brewed yerba mate. It’s carbonated as well.

You can buy mate tea as tea sachets, "Mate leão" has a nice taste blend.

Why not do it with the leaves? This is harder as their taste profile is very uneven.

For the sour taste, add citric acid.

I'm pretty sure that if you toy around with the amount of citric acid, sugar & dillution you'll get a similar taste, or something even more palatable for you.

Thanks for the tips! Will try!

> mate tea as tea sachets

Look for “mate cocido”. La Tranquera is the brand I use.

65 grams of sugar for 500ml is "less sugar"?How, if a 500ml bottle of club mate only has 25 grams? Did you mean 6.5 grams perhaps?

Edit: My bad, I didn't realise that was for 5 bottles. Carry on.

Still not great if consumed regularly, sugar is one of the worst thing we pump our bodies. Its basically a slow acting poison that kills our organs. Complex carbs are better, but stuff in drinks is same as eating spoonfulls of it directly

To be honest, I don't have that much fun in playing around with the recipe, but I found this one and it just works for me: https://github.com/xil-se/FreeMate

But nowadays I just drink plain yerba mate with a splash of lemon juice, no added sugar. I do the FreeMate in summer a bit.

Edit: Btw, if anyone of you bought yerba mate before and thought it didn't taste great, for me personally there are huge differences between them. I like the milder ones a lot more that don't have much powder. If you have been disappointed before maybe try again with a different brand and don't forget the splash of lemon juice, that makes a crazy big difference

Tereré is also a milder alternative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terer%C3%A9

I love terere - note you will get less caffeine and antioxidants from cold brewing.

You can also buy mate with mint mixed in. I accidentally bought a kilo of it a while ago and I've been working through it slowly.

I just made some this morning, and it came out delicious even with only 6 hours of cold brewing in the fridge! Thanks for the idea!

Just tried your recipe myself and it really tasty! I also prefer a less sweet version. I'm looking forward to playing around with it and customizing it :D

If you want to carbonate water but don't want to buy a countertop carbonator or its overpriced CO2 refills, you can get a ball lock valve cap that screws onto 1L or 2L soda bottles for around $8-16.

That valve will attach to a standard female fitting, which you can put on the end of a hose coming from a pressure regulator, which will attach to a full-size CO2 cylinder available from a brewing or gas supply shop. CO2 refills are a lot cheaper this way.

Put cold water in the bottle with some extra space at the top. Squeeze out the air and attach the valve cap. Set the pressure regulator, connect it to the bottle, open the regulator's output valve, and watch the bottle that was slightly crushed by your squeezing expand back to its normal shape. Slosh the water around with pressure applied for maybe 10-30 seconds. Close the output valve and disconnect.

Voilà. Carbonated water.

IIRC, PETE soda bottles are pressurized to about 50 psi for retail shelves. I don't think they're likely to burst until well beyond 100 psi, and they'll deform before they burst, so if you're careful, you can go a little higher than 50 and make fizzier water than what you can buy in the store. I have used 70 psi many times.

Read up on precautions for handling pressurized gas before doing any of this. Wear eye protection. Don't turn your bottle or gas cylinder into an unguided missile. :)

Sadly, I don't have any info on microplastics released by this process. (Nor by countertop carbonators and their rigid plastic flasks.) I wish I knew of a suitable steel bottle to use instead.

FWIW the counter carbonators aren't too bad if you use a third-party refill instead of the expensive branded ones. Also, you can just use dry ice to refill the bottles rather than swapping for new ones. If you don't want to geek out on a complete DIY setup, the countertop models are definitely a little more convenient.

I bought an Aarke (soda stream comp) and a CO2 hose. Now I use one of the 5lb tanks. It's great.

What do you mean? You use the 5lb tank via the Aarke instead of the CO2 cylinders? Or you refill somehow the CO2 cylinders? If it's the first one this sounds like the best of both worlds with the convenience of the countertop device and the cost-efficiency of the bulk CO2. It would be great if you elaborated some more!

I bought a hose from Amazon where one end screws onto the 5 kg CO2 tanks (I'm in Japan so metric) and the other end has the same male nozzle as a SodaStream cylinder so you screw it in where a cylinder would screw in, so the tank feeds straight into it. Just need a place on the floor near your countertop to put the big tank.

I’ve done this for years and never ruptured a bottle, I set the regulator to 60psi.

I’d like a metal bottle too but haven’t found one - I presume spraying some co2 into it would be enough to get the plain air out since you obviously can’t squeeze the air out.

Could you do the math for the raw material cost of 355ml?

I found it cheaper and much, much more convenient to get an adapter to refill the countertop carbonator's CO2 cylinders from a standard 20 lb CO2 cylendar. That way, you can carbonate from the much smaller and easier to use countertop unit, you can service multiple countertop carbonators from a single larger tank, and you can leave the larger tank shut off and away from living areas so that a leak doesn't pose a hazard.

> I found it cheaper and much, much more convenient

Cheaper? I don't see how. We're filling from the same CO2 cylinders, and my total hardware cost was less than that of a midrange SodaStream without the adapter you describe.

More convenient? Maybe, depending on environment and use.

But mine has advantages, too: More fizz, no counter space required, fewer fragile plastic parts, standard components that are easily serviced/replaced, and the ability to carbonate liquids other than water without worry of backspray gumming up a countertop machine's internal components. (Your unit's instructions probably tell you to use only water, for this reason.)

> you can leave the larger tank shut off and away from living areas so that a leak doesn't pose a hazard.

I close my cylinder's main valve when it's not in use, and the two additional valves downstream of it (at the regulator and ball lock fitting) also work, so I think a leak is very unlikely. Even if there was one, I would expect it to be noticed quickly or else too slow for the released CO2 to cause harm.

SodaStream carbonators are super common at all the thrift stores near me, so they're like $5 to $10. There's one on eBay right now for $25 with free shipping. The refill adapter was $10 on AliExpress, but the cheapest regulator alone cost more than my entire setup.

One advantage of standard tabletop carbonators is that you can get versions with glass bottles. I quite like the 0.7l glass sodastream bottles.

You could probably get them to work on a DIY setup with the right pressure regulator settings and the right adapter. But I'd like to avoid the flying glass shards if I get it wrong

Do you mind my asking which ones you use? The only ones I've been able to find (Canada) don't work with the standard soda stream

I use SodaStream Crystal. There is the older Crystal 2.0 that uses the old generic screw-type CO2 cylinders, and the newer Crystal 3.0 which uses the patented quick-connect cylinders.

Looking at the Canadian website, neither is sold in Canada (1 for a link on the German website). There is the SodaStream Duo which supports a different type of glas bottle. Might be easier to source locally, but exists only with the quick-connect cylinders and is a bit expensive for what it is, at least if you buy it new

[1]: https://sodastream.de/products/crystal-3-0?variant=404654832...

How's the durability of the Crystal? I had two of the original Penguin systems, and the seals broke down and the frame stretched. I'd prefer to go back to the glass bottles.

No issues with the Crystal so far. It's pretty sturdy. But that's the old 2.0 model, looking at the reviews the new 3.0 is a downgrade in terms of quality, in addition to the downgrade of being forced into the proprietary cylinders

Bummer. I loved the glass bottles in the penguin, but I got tired fighting the durability problems. I got as far as researching custom gaskets and shims, and gave up.

Search AliExpress, eBay, or Amazon for "SodaStream glass bottle adapter" and you'll find aftermarket adapters that allow filling the glass bottles from SodaStream models designed for plastic bottles. They're $5 to $15, depending on which store you get them from.

Before the plague shut down the place I got my larger bottle refilled, I got a mid-size standard CO2 to SodaStream adapter from Ali Express. Saved me a fortune hooked up direct to the SodaStream, especially as sparkling water was intermittently surprisingly difficult to get hold of during those times. I should contact the gas supplier, see where the nearest point is now.

As a kid I built a pneumatic musket with both 20 oz and 2 liter bottles and filled them up to 80 psi repeatedly, and never had one pop.

I wouldn't recommend going that high for a carbonated drink though, unless you like to live dangerously while opening your soda.

Here you go: https://www.kegoutlet.com/carbonating-kits.html

Hmm... Those steel growlers look appealing, if a little pricey, but their 45 psi relief valves would prevent carbonating with as much fizz as I like. I wonder if the PRV could be swapped with a different one that holds more like 75 psi.

Thanks for the link. This gives me a direction worth investigating, at least.

Ask on the site, the company was responsive to my questions. I’d be curious to know also, as I usually run right at the limit (about 40psi to account for temperature changes. Fridge water cold holds much more gas than just tap water cold, particularly in summer

Pro-tip: cold water.

And not soda stream but drink mate.

Disconnects with the head and can be shaken dissolving more gas.

Also since the head is detachable, the worst that can happen after something foaming the nozzle I 5 second rinse in the cold water.

Don't like the company, love the product.

Use Perrier glass bottles. They're designed for low-level carbonation and can be resealed.

I guess the definition of "overpriced" varies, but I pay 7 or 8 EUR for one bottle of CO2 and it lasts like 3-4 weeks for 2 people, just to put it into perspective.

I paid about 20-25 USD for my last 5 lb refill. That was a few years ago, and it's still providing. My prior fill lasted more than 5 years (maybe 6 or 7) serving one fizzy water fan and occasional guests.

Apparently kits are now available for those who don't want to shop around for parts. Here's a photo:

https://www.kegoutlet.com/prod_images/xlarge/2/0/SP202T-SS.a...

Perfectly Replicating Coca Cola (It Took Me A Year) - LabCoatz : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDkH3EbWTYc

This content creator used a mass spectrometer to find the flavoring used in Coca-Cola.

GCMS is neat, we have a really nice one at work but don't use it to reverse engineer soft drinks. Although, if we had a bit more time we probably could.

It is with utter disappointment that I must inform everyone that, after 3 months, there is still a complete lack of "Koala Cola" imitators popping up. I want to try one so much.

Jumps through 100 hoops to make coke... doesn't add cocaine?! :)

Add modifinil and peptides and you'll have your latest soylent startup.

bpc-157 soda would sell like hotcakes. Putting the "Heal" in "Healthy"

Heh, I knew that Coca-cola didn't still have cocaine, but TIL it doesn't have Cola (nut) either! Its name is completely ridiculous now.

I've also been dabbling in this recently in an attempt to avoid buying SodaStream syrups (which are on the BDS boycott list).

Tips for working on sugar-free recipes: In some countries (like Canada), soft-drink manufacturers are required to disclose the exact amount of each artificial sweetener they use in the drink. So you can easily grab those numbers from Canadian product listings for use in your own recipes. E.g. 355ml of Diet Coke contains 131 mg aspartame + 15mg ace-K.

Also, aspartame can be difficult/slow to dissolve. It dissolves better in solutions with a low pH and a warmer temperature.

Well done for the BDS attempt ... had to get my Mum to return her Sodastream as she had no idea.

But I have to say, this whole thing is enough to turn me off soft drinks altogether.

Maybe that's the point?

Those bags full of crystals look like something out of Breaking Bad, lol, but I appreciate getting rid of the sugar and caffeine.

Some sparkling water and some cordials or dilutes has to be ~ better!

Thanks for the reminder to switch!

I Googled the BDS Boycott list at a glance...the top link (https://bdsmovement.net/Guide-to-BDS-Boycott) mentions a bunch of companies, including Sodastream. The immediate issue I see is that Sodastream is owned by PepsiCo, Inc. That immediately makes them complicit as well. PepsiCo was also facing a lawsuit regarding a partnership with Walmart for price fixing (https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2026/01/08/walmart-peps...) until the Trump administration threw it out (https://apnews.com/article/ftc-pepsico-trump-walmart-2cd8b42...).

I bring all this up to say that even if everyone boycotts sodastream, it won't do diddly to the actual folks responsible. I bet the same goes for others on that list. Boycotts also don't usually work in general. Most of the time it takes full on government intervention, lawsuits, etc. to change things.

>Most of the time it takes full on government intervention, lawsuits, etc. to change things.

That's the S.

Boycotts definitely have their limitations, but the Sodastream boycott seems to have had some sort of effect: https://www.timesofisrael.com/victory-for-bds-as-sodastreams..., though whether the intended effect was achieved is debatable...

"West Bank Industrial Zone" lol.

Call it for what it really is (not you, Times Of Israel). A factory inside an illegal West Bank settlement.

We do what we can, where we can, when we can.

Personally, I find it's less about the act (although financially depriving companies of my cash does make me feel good), it's about the conversation the act starts.

And I've seen it work, or help. Some among us will remember the boycott of South African goods during Apartheid.

Isn't this addressed on the same page you linked?

> We must strategically focus on a relatively smaller number of carefully selected companies and products for maximum impact.

My intentionally pick companies that are large enough to be noticable but small enough that they could actually achieve something with the amount of support they have.

If you look the other two letters of "BDS", divestment and sanctions are the strategies for larger institutions and government interventions

https://bdsmovement.net/what-bds

>BDS boycott list

Looks like a great initiative. Anyone knows about a similar list, but for companies that support Russia and occupation of Ukraine?

BDS has been around since 2005 and organizing on a global scale.

Russia is under heavy sanctions so I doubt there's much more regular consumers can do to boycott if they live in countries compliant with those sanctions.

But there's an app that's (unfortunately) named BoyCat that currently mainly works for BDS. You scan a product and it tells you if it's directly or indirectly tied to a product on the BDS list. I heard they are trying to expand functionality to allow anyone to make and organize around a list

https://www.boycat.io/

TBH this is an idea I've personally wanted to work on for a long time. I think the boycott is an underrated tool for social change and tools that can make it easier to organize around them can be a really powerful force for good

There’s a really simple way that will protect you from any current or future corruptions/profit before people behaviour: don’t buy anything from any large corporations.

If you do this you also benefit from giving your money to real people and not contributing to huge amounts of waste and pollution.

People are always so laser focussed on the latest trendy thing, but why not just boycott all huge corporations/organisations? It’s a much simpler rule that achieves the same thing and you have the added benefit of boycotting companies that haven’t had their corruption uncovered… yet!

I find it more effective to say, I'm avoiding product X for Y reason.

This starts a conversation more effectively with contacts rather than go full large company avoidance which is difficult for people to imagine, let alone act on.

I sympathise with what you're saying though.

This is actually addressed on the BDS movement website

https://bdsmovement.net/what-bds

Effective boycotts work on companies that are large enough to be noticed but small enough for boycotts to have an effect, while divestments and sanctions can be lobbied for larger institutions and governments.

I think just saying something like "why not just boycott all huge corporations/organisations?" can be a bit disingenuous when I think it's pretty well acknowledged that We Live In A Society that makes completely separating yourself from large corporations essentially isolate you from society as a whole

> In some countries (like Canada), soft-drink manufacturers are required to disclose the exact amount of each artificial sweetener they use in the drink

Can you share some links? Neither amazon.ca nor walmart.ca seem to show this.

I enjoy the flavor of kvass - a Russian / eastern European malt flavored soda - but it's hard to find where I live. The process involves really aggressively toasting some rye bread, boiling it with eaisans and sugar, straining it, and then brewing it with ordinary baking yeast in 2-liter bottles until it reaches your desired carbonation level. The end result is really refreshing.

How does this not become alcoholic?

I understand that Kvass is around 1% alcohol.

By Russian standards, this is "non-alcoholic".

I once got a Root Beer brewing kit as a gift. It noted that a trivial amount of alcohol would be produced by the process (no included or added yeast either!) and it wasn't a big deal.

Usually they remove the alcohol later. The taste is similar to a alcohol-free Guinness (but sweeter).

It is usually alcoholic. 0.5-2%. Here stores sell most commonly 0.5% one which is regulated to be sold like a non-alcoholic drink.

Short brewing time. Finnish sima is similar - sugar, lemon, water, yeast, ferment for a couple of days. Alcoholic drinks are usually fermented much longer, aged, and processed much more intensively.

Me too except I just use rye malt instead of the bread and without making any dough with it. The malt is cheap and easy to get in UK thanks to home brewing suppliers whereas rye bread is super expensive.

My only challenge is controlling the gassiness - it’s so vigorous that the moment I even slightly open the cap the whole thing fizzes up like crazy - opening it normally would result in a kvass fountain shooting up like 30cm. :)

If you can get it where you are, have you considered trying malta[0][1]?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta_(soft_drink)

[1] https://www.findmeabrewery.com/blog/malta/

I have tried malta, and I like it. But it's a bit sweeter. I think it's a worthwhile substitute if you don't want the fun of trying to make something that might go wrong.

I bottled 20 litres of kombucha yesterday with ginger and lemongrass. It'll be very fizzy and ready to drink in 3-5 days. Costs next to nothing and quite healthy - water, black tea, sugar, (gifted and self-reproducing) scoby. The flavourings are what costs most, depending on what you use.

Oooh that sounds good! I’ve been meaning to add fermented stuff to my diet.

me too, thinking of buying fruit juices and yeasts. These taxes are killing me.

Maybe try water kefir first then. I've got mine for 5 years now at least, making 2 bottles every couple of weeks or so.

Kefir is easier and quicker to make than kombucha, there is no caffeine and maybe less sugar. Probably the best intro to fermented drinks!

Thanks! I think I might! I’m not very adventurous food/taste wise so that sounds like a good entry point.

what did you bottle it in?

Bottles?

Looking for specific bottle recommendations and suppliers

youre overthinking this. use any bottle that you want.

glass, plastic, etc.. Buy some swingtop beer and you'll get the bottles for free. screwon - be it glass or plastic - also work.

There's also surely 1000 articles and videos on this very topic, but its not important

Kombucha is the best "natural" soft drink for me, too. It's not entirely sugar-free, though (even though you can get it to low-sugar with longer fermentation).

I'm not concerned with sugar-free. I drink maybe 500ml per day, and otherwise consume ZERO added sugar. And It's surely a small fraction of the sugar in soda, fruit juices etc... I also like it sour/highly fermented

Yeah I do ginger beer! There's plenty of recipes online. Simplified version:

Combine ginger + sugar + water in a quart jar. Let it sit for 3-7 days, covered but open, at room temp. Will stary to bubble. These are your live ginger yeasties, or ginger bug.

Boil a big batch of ginger tea (more ginger + sugar + water). Cool to <100F, add ginger bug. Strain. Bottle in plastic bottles (glass explodes on me sometimes). Ready in 3-7 days. Gets boozy if you leave it out longer.

Add a little citric acid and/or lemon juice at tea step to give it a little acid to counteract the funk.

I went down this rabbit hole last year after buying a carbonator. Rather than mixing a bunch of oils together, I bought my flavors from Bakto Flavors (based in NJ, USA) which is founded by Dr. Daphna Havkin Frenkel who did her research in food sciences and biotechnology, focusing on vanilla. The cola flavor is really good, and I add acetic acid (Vitamin C) + electrolytes to it. If I'm feeling it, I'll add in vanilla, cherry, or lime flavors to it.

Sad to hear she passed away recently this month.

Highly recommend Bakto's natural flavors.

> acetic acid (Vitamin C)

ascorbic acid!

Acetic acid is vinegar. Not something I'd like to taste in any soft drink.

I don't like vinegar much either, but vinegar in drinks does have a certain tradition e.g.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posca

Or more recently Switchel, which was popular in 19th century America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchel

I think the ready availability or citrus fruits caused their decline.

ah yes, I remember that one from some episode of Tasting History, but I could not remember the name!

Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrub_(drink)

I'm hoping Irn-Bru will come out with Fish-n-Chips Soda with a strong vinegar finish!

In the mean time, does anyone know the formula for traditional Irn-Bru? How do you get the girders to dissolve into the syrup?

RARE Irn-Bru Advertising Poster/Calendar 1992 Demand Going to be Wee Bit Heavier

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/374619031624

Irn Bru - "Made in Scotland from Girders" - Drilled Hole

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoVfy_q9IFc

Irn Bru Advert - "Made in Scotland from Girders" - Steam Roller

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD3LippIN40

Irn Bru Advert: Shipyard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBjYfe-QIBg

IRN-BRU Snowman Advert

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yZOab5gl-4

IRN-BRU Snowman - The Sequel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8WBStu4STY

ROYALS: The Queen and Prince William visit the Irn-Bru factory | 5 News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU-0n1m-2OE

At 1:08 they hold up a precious bottle of pure secret Irn-Bru Essence. How can I get me some of that?

Soadly is getting popular in Australia as an alternative to sugar / artificial sweeteners soadas. Most use vinegar: https://www.remedydrinks.com/collections/sodaly

Are there any reasonably priced water carbonation systems that aren't sodastream adjacent?

I know there are hacks for the older sodastreams where you can buy a large tank from a foodgas company, but what I really want is a machine in my house that I can bring a cup to and fill with soda without it costing me ~$1,000.

The only cheap way to carbonate water is in a batch process, like a SoadaStream or equivalent DIY method of releasing CO2 out of a straw into water in a pressurized vessel.

If you really want a faucet that dispenses carbonated water, the cheapest method is to buy just the part of a commercial machine that does the carbonating. It consists of a high-pressure tank with a carbonated water output, and separate water and CO2 tank inputs, as well as a pump that pressurizes the input water, to match the CO2 pressure, so that the water can enter the tank.

If you search Craigslist or eBay for "carbonator with pump" you can usually find something for ~$200. Throw in another ~$100 for a used tank, regulator, and faucet, and you can get a 1920's style seltzer fountain in your own home, then add syrups if you want flavored sodas, or throw in some milk and chocolate syrup and call it an egg cream, despite it containing neither.

I'd be interested in soft drinks that were unsweetened altogether and not just sugar free. Sometimes I have sparkling water + apple cider vinegar + lemon/lime juice and it's wonderful when well mixed.

Sparkling iced tea would likely hit a spot.

The problem is that carbonic acid is bitter, and if you have a carbonated beverage, you have carbonic acid. Usually, this bitterness is balanced by sweeteners.

I've got a couple of sweetener-free recipes I use with my soda maker, though I should warn you nobody else I've given them to likes them. But I like them well enough.

One is a couple of squirts of vanilla, a couple of squirts of lemon juice, and a bit of salt. Salt is probably an underappreciated drink ingredient for this sort of thing. It turns out it isn't in your soft drinks just to make you want to drink more. This makes something that is related to cream soda, except for the aspects of cream soda that come from being crammed full of sugar, which I can't do much about.

I also have a mix I keep around made out of 3 tablespoons salt, 1 cup vanilla, 1/2 cup lemon juice, 1/2 cup lime juice, and about 1/3rd cup almond extract. I measure it all (except the salt which I just put in directly) into a single 2 cup Pyrex dish and just sort of eyeball the last 1/3rd cup of almond extract, then funnel it in to a holder. I use McCormick 32 oz vanilla and almond extract for this and order bulk RealLemon and RealLime juice for this from Amazon, and mix it into one of the leftover bottles and keep it around refrigerated. 3 squirts and "whatever dribbles in" as I'm removing the bottle is what I used for one DrinkMate bottle. To taste, as all of this is, of course. If nothing else this is pretty cheap per drink.

You can also mix unsweetened electrolytes in, but you have to wait until after you dilute the mixture with water or it'll react with the lemon & lime juice. Salt you can keep in the mix but not electrolytes in general. It adds a certain body to the mix even if you're not interested in the electrolytes per se, and a single packet of them lasts a long time.

You're not going to go into business selling this stuff, but if you're already drinking unsweetened apple cider vinegar & lemon/lime juice as a beverage flavoring we might just have some compatible tastes here. Carbonation is required, though, otherwise the vanilla and the almond extract don't come through at all.

Thanks, may try this.

Last time I tried this...it was alot easier to just buy the concentrate from Cube-Cola rather than trying to source all of the essential oils separately and shear them together.

https://cube-cola.org/

I think you'd end up paying less, too. I paid about 20 bucks for the concentrate bottle plus shipping, made 1.75L of it, thought it was fine but couldn't quite replace Coke in my diet, and didn't buy again. Had I done it all from scratch, I'm pretty sure I would've paid more and had a bunch of essential oil bottles leftover, going to waste.

20 bucks for 1.75ml of cola seems like pretty bad value.

To be clear, it made about 1.75L of syrup, not cola. I kept the cola syrup jug in a fridge for like a year, and when I wanted a glass of "cola" I'd add about an oz of the syrup concentrate to a glass of carbonated water (which I pre-carbonated with my DrinkMate), and stirred to combine.

I used like half the amount of sugar the cube-cola recipe recommended, because it seemed high. It wasn't Coke sweet but it was still plenty sweet for a soft drink, to my palette.

EDIT: Originally said 1.75 ml, meant to say Liters.

An oz is ~29.57 ml (mililiters), so I think perhaps you meant that you made 1.7 l (liters)?

Do you mean L? ml to me would be millilitres and one fluid ounce is ~30ml.

Yes, typo on my side. Thanks for catching!

This is why normal folk use quarts and gallons so there is no confusion. An mg vs ng of astrophage is deadly.

How is the cleanup with DrinkMate? Washing everything was my primary problem with SodaStream.

Not hard? I mean you need a dedicated bottle brush, but the bottle itself is the only thing I recall having to clean. The DrinkMate advertises itself as being able to carbonate other things (juice, flat soda, etc.), but I never carbonate anything other than water in the bottle, then add my syrups only after decanting. It prevents the bottle from getting sticky.

I love the saccharin/cyclamate combo, but it's actually illegal in the USA. I use ZeroCal from Brazil. If you ever see it in a market in the USA, enjoy the tiny act of civil disobedience.

Saccharin was almost made illegal in the USA, until Teddy Roosevelt stepped in. He liked it in his tea.

The soda industry generally prefers aspartame/acesulfame potassium, as it has the right aftertaste profile to replace sugar.

Cyclamate is used in some parts of Europe (like Germany) together with aspartame and acesulfame-K. I find the cyclamate smoothens the somewhat bitter aftertaste.

Cyclamate is banned in the US based on a flawed 1969 study that supposedly showed it to be carcinogenic. It's legal in most of the world, including the EU.

Yep, one of those places where the US thinks it's bad and millions of people elsewhere are just fine.

I thought this would be for people who cannot drink commercially available drinks due to mandated addition of sweeteners.

I stopped consuming these, any that I tried was leaving awful chemical aftertaste that I just cannot get used to.

So instead I was DIY drinks by mixing concentrated fruit juice (with no added sweeteners) with sparkling water.

Also be careful if drink says "natural flavourings" - it's a loophole to add sweetener that is not classified as sweetener, so they don't have to put it on the label, but still tastes awful.

I heavily carbonate my water from a soda steam and find that the carbonation alone makes the water taste sweet enough to skip any additional sweeteners. I refill the co2 bottles myself to keep it less expensive.

Shout out to those who love manga/anime: there's an anime called "Dr Stone" that's quite appealing to us nerds as it showcases real life chemistry and physics. In one episode, the protagonist shares the recipe for making natural "cola" (called "Senku Cola" if you want to look it up) and it's actually apparently very close to the real thing

There's a great book about this if you're interested. Half history lesson half recipes. Check out: Fix the Pumps (which the book tells you is old soda fountain slag for check out a woman's breasts)

I liked this video about recreating coke https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDkH3EbWTYc&t=176s

Yes, this video (and HN commentary https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46543509 ) are an amazing nerdy deep dive into a taste chemistry subject. And seems to have uncovered new information (to the general public that is, maybe not new to Cola co insiders)

You know it's getting serious when they science it, using a mass spectrometer. And then keep at it for a year through many experiments that did not produce a result. That attitude of "the experiment didn't fail, it successfully eliminated one of the possibilities" is very scientific.

Reminds me a lot of this video where the authors claim to have essentially replicated the true coca-cola flavor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDkH3EbWTYc

> Made a second batch of cola syrup without caramel color. It’s much weirder to drink than I expected.

Indeed the 90s were an interesting time: https://youtu.be/2za2IK8FQoM

I thought of those. I remember drinking some. It tastes like cola but somehow different.

But then again I liked new coke. And that wierd “ok soda” that doesn’t exist anymore.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_Soda

I wonder if we'd have the same reaction if cola had never been darkened. We wouldn't, right?

This is surprisingly close to how commercial soda flavor bases are described in old patents — especially the oil + gum arabic emulsion part.

What I find really interesting is how little actual oil is needed for such a large volume. Makes you realize how much of “cola taste” is just perception tricks rather than bulk ingredients.

Have you tried measuring how stable the emulsion is over time? I’d be curious how long it stays homogeneous without separation.

This is really interesting. I have been making my own "instant cola" with several large dashes of angostura bitters and a can of seltzer in a pint glass. The liquid should be very pink/orange. and, if I want sweetness a drop of liquid sucralose sweetner is all I need, just sweet enough for me without aftertaste. This mix scratches my cola itch very well and can be made in about 20 seconds.

Try walnut or cherry bitters sometimes for a similar but different enough to be interesting flavor.

Fun fact: Angostura bitters has gentian root extract in it, which is also in the northeastern US's favorite regional soda specialty: Moxie! If you like that, you'll probably also like Moxie.

It's also a great way to taste bitters, generally, and a pretty decent substitute for a drink if you're trying to cut back.

wait, are those the only ingredients?

I started out there but really love the bitters from these guys https://allthebitter.com/ vs using the agnostura bitters I had from a liquor store. Zero alcohol in them also.

I love ginger ale. One small can a day kinda guy. But don't want any ingredients I don't know.

So, I bought these 4:

- DrinkMate soda maker (with CO2 cylinders)

- fresh squeezed ginger juice (not from concentrate)

- fresh squeezed lemon juice

- unpasteurized honey

Mix water + 3 ingredients + CO2. Shake and chill in freezer for 5 minutes while gas dissolves.

Get 400ml/day ginger ale at home - lasts lunch & dinner.

> I like my drinks really sour, so I might add another… 10 g of citric acid to this batch.

IIRC it's not a great idea to drink carbonated beverages with lots of sugar or acid. Each of these elements weakens your teeth, and in combination the effect is much greater.

It's almost impossible to get root beer syrup or extract in the Netherlands, but I found the solution (ha ha) in Darcy O'Neil's "Art of Drink" videos. He wrote a book about soda fountain history, "Fix the Pumps: The History of the American Soda Fountain" (which malfist recommended in the sibling comment), and he gets into the science and history and culture behind drink flavoring.

https://www.youtube.com/@Artofdrink

First of all you need to make quality carbonated water (de-aerate water by boiling it, carbonate it when ice cold, use heavy cold glasses, don't use ice):

Carbonating Water: The 2 Most Important Things To Do

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBNJ7yzIvtw

Here's his root beer forumula:

How to Make Root Beer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIUMFkDV4FE

>Making root beer is really quite simple and anyone can do it in about 20 minutes. The core flavour is wintergreen oil and then there are additional complementary flavours that give the root beer its character.

He has several videos about formulating cola and many other flavors too:

How Coca-Cola Gets Its Iconic Taste

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi8o06qv7m8

The Origin of the Coca Cola Flavour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-1tGNobqi0

How to Make Cola, like Coca-Cola or Pepsi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2yLvseG5UM

What Coke and Pepsi Don’t Tell You About Caramel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7CFZAw3dkA

And if you want old school Coke flavor, here's one on how to simulate the smell of cocaine:

Coca leaf and Cocaine Aroma Used in Coca-Cola

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMcaYtOIbes

>Cocaine, or at least the aroma compounds in coca-leaf is an important flavour component of Coca-Cola today and possibly other colas, historically. So the question you might ask is "what does cocaine smell like?" And here is the answer. If you've ever thought about making your own version of Coca-Cola and thought something was missing, this might be that piece to the puzzle.

You use the same stuff they train drug sniffing dogs with (methyl benzoate and methyl cinnamate). Also there's another ingredient, truxilic acid, that's extremely hard to get, and is much more expensive ($300/gram) than real cocaine.

The bit about dogs just gives me nightmares. I picture a few puffs of the dust from that dispersing in my kitchen during that experiment, and then every item then in the vicinity becoming a beacon for drug dogs for the rest of my life :D

I often carbonate my tap water and drink it straight, and have never thought the taste was any different from commercial seltzers. Then again, my tap water is just as good as or better than commercial bottled water, likely because it is mostly from mountain spring and snow melt, that travels down rocky high-flow streams.

There's a Nile Red video where Nigel carbonated water with carbon from diamonds, and when he tasted it, he complained that it tasted like his local tap water, which wasn't very good.

What's the water like in the Netherlands?

The Stepan company in New Jersey is the only entity legally allowed to import coca leaves (aside from the DEA, ICE, the FBI and a few others that buy and sell all the time) and extract the illegal methyl benzoyl ecgonine (C17H21NO4) leaving the flavor compounds. Query whether they would sell the de-cocainized product to a soft drink hobbyist. Friends in Colombia report that Sek Cola sold there has the ecgonine ingredient. Not sure how close the recipe replicates the original Atlanta beverage.

Recipe and accompanying video here: https://www.tastinghistory.com/recipes/switchel

Tried making it. Certainly interesting! But not something I’ll make again.

Ah, good old Dragonspice.de, they have provided me with supplies for many of my experiments as well. I have many of the essential oils already, I might try this! Thank you for posting your recipe.

If I could figure out diet dr. pepper this could be life changing :-)

Same but for Diet Coke. Would make ridiculous amounts of it

Can you make chinotto?

I highly recommend art of drink: https://www.artofdrink.com/

Yes! Also his book "Fix the Pumps" https://a.co/d/0intXOn1 which has a bizarre title and cover art, but is right up there with "Liquid Intelligence" for traditional sodas.

It is wild seeing someone drink something labeled with the irritant, health hazard, and environmental hazard warnings. It also begs the question of disposal regarding the environmental hazard one. I know it's safe due to the doses, but made me pause in horror briefly. (Reality check: Many drugs have the health hazard, or even the skull-and-crossbones. But anecdotally, many of the health-hazard-marked substances I've come across are carcinogenic/reproductive harm)

The dose (often) makes the poison.

Citrus fruit itself is generally regarded as fine to eat. Concentrating the oils can make them irritating (and flammable, etc) but that’s essentially undone by diluting them into a syrup and then diluting the syrup into an actual drink.

If those kinds of warnings were required on naturally occurring products, pretty much everything in your pantry would need them.

A 28-oz cylinder of table salt, that can be easily had for $1 at a grocery store, could kill eight healthy adult men, if they each consumed a third of a cup in one sitting.

A five-gallon carafe of water used in most water coolers holds enough water to kill two adult men, if they drank it as fast as they could.

There's a bunch of foods that are poisonous if prepared wrong. I can't find the lethal dose, but a bag of raw kidney beans could kill multiple people. A cassava/tapioca root can kill you too. Eating a bottle nutmeg probably won't kill you, but it might make you wish it did.

Of course, it would be difficult to consume enough of any of these things to hurt yourself, (except for the beans) because we're able to sense when we are consuming dangerous quantities or types of foods, but it's not flawless, hence the need for tradition to pass down how to cook, or warning labels for foods that aren't prepared in traditional ways.

Everything in the universe, given the correct proportion and duration, is lethal to human beings.

…including reports on toxicity: https://xkcd.com/1260/

I love this idea. However, I found the article difficult to read because the images are far too large in terms of file size.

One thing I noticed was: Where's the phosphoric acid? Does the use of gum arabic eliminate the need?

The recipe is using citric acid, instead. The tastes are slightly different, but citric acid is easier to get.

Somewhat surprised to learn that cola recipes don't actually contain any kola-nut!

the look on the cashier's face when you ask for one bean is half the product

So at some point I went on a loose leaf herbal tea buying spree and bought (and almost immediately forgot about) something called "catuaba". I tried making it into a tea and it was... an acquired taste. In my efforts to make the product more digestible I mixed it with some sparkling water.

The result tasted shockingly similar to coca cola.

So I did some research and it turns out that what's labelled as "catuaba bark" actually refer to a couple different unrelated herbs. But ONE of the sources of "catuaba bark" is Erythroxylum vaccinifolium. Erythroxylum is the coca genus. I have no idea if this specific species contains cocaine but what I CAN confirm is that there are sellers within the US that grow and sell this "herb". Which means you don't have to worry about customs intercepting your order at the border.

Fun fact - erythroxylum vaccinifolium makes for a potent aphrodisiac.

I see that it's marketed that way. I don't know if I experienced that. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention

I was completely expecting a self-carbonation solution. It's not disappointing, just got a different cool thing :)

Disappointed there is no carbon dioxide injection. In the 90s till date in this corner of India, Mr Butler is a compact pure mechanical device which can make nose tickling strong sodas. If I were a soda fan, I would have DIYed and rejected the flat mop water that most commercial sodas have become.

A easy solution might be to mix the concentrate with sparkling/carbonated water?

I made Open Cola once, and hooked it up to CO2 canisters and a beer tap (the other tap had home made beer). It's certainly better than mixing with soda water or using a SodaStream.

The trick to have well carbonated beverages if all you have available is a sodastream-like device:

- cook the water to remove any other disolved gasses

- Cool it down to as cold as you can. A sludge of ice and water is very close to zero °C

- keep some ice unmelted

- carbonate

This is a bit annoying to do especially step one (I skip it, it seems to help bit not to a huge degree) but it helps making very carbonated water to mix with the sirup

Nice, I will have to try that!

Right? In the summer, there's two things I drink. Cold water overnight infused with whatever (lemon, cucumber, mint, etc) and carbonated water from the store. Both are cheap to make and pleasant when it is hot. Neither has added sugar. You can also infuse with fruits like strawberries. In the other parts of the year (esp. winter) I make a can of tea (nearly 1,5l) with two teabags. One cup of tea is about 0,2l so it will last the whole day, and it stays hot for 24h. Make in morning and you got whole day together (we are two drinking this). Sometimes goes to waste cause of being away, too hot weather. There's a lot of good fusion brands available (I like Yogi Tea's blends a lot), you can also make your own herbal mix. Just be careful with some herbs and medication.

The carbonated water and lemon in water make for an acidic liquid. This is nice when it is hot, but it is also bad for teeth. So I do try to limit these somewhat, never drink it right before brushing, brush 2x a week, and floss with those special toothpicks. I also drink the acidic stuff with the main meal in evening when the teeth already get a blast from the meal, regularly at least.

As a former wine drinker (who can also appreciate special beers and heavy liquor) I was not able to stick to one beer on friday evening, and I recognized the struggle to battle an addiction, being an alcoholic in disguise. I've been sober past years, approx 4, apart from an occasional mistake due to alcohol in a desert or an intentional tiramisu during Christmas.

I also still drink coffee, but with caffeine not so much. Mainly in morning/afternoon. As a kid I was a fan of cola, the coca cola one (for some reason never liked other ones like Aldi's or Pepsi much; there's a lot of choice these days). Club Mate is a bit hard to source and the pfand is annoying (justified, but...) to send back from NL. But I been able to quit that in puberty. So, while I like cheap/bulk, I am not sure what I could gain from DIY soda (the carbonated water is cheap and we get the groceries at the doorstep, also useful since we don't have a car).

I knew before clicking it would be a German.

But did you know the fingernails were clipped perfectly? What a delight to see in these photos.

I switched to zero sugar about a year ago, but all the zero sugar sodas use aspartame (yeah yeah not proven to cause cancer, but still not a great sweetener)

for now (out of laziness), I just grab plain sparkling water and add Stur drops

Also didn’t expect to be pulling recipes off GitHub, but I’ll take that any day over those paywalled sites

Definitely want to give this a try!

> aspartame (yeah yeah not proven to cause cancer, but still not a great sweetener)

Compared to what? Aspartame is almost certainly the most studied artificial sweetener in existence, and the safety profile looks very good.

I presume the comment was referring to the lack of greatness in the flavor. Sucralose tastes much better, for one.

Aspartame tastes fine to me. I think it's one of those things that some people can taste and others cannot.

It definitely varies from person to person. I'm on the more sensitive side of tasting bitter substances, although I do like bitter foods like Brussels sprouts, grapefruit and kumquats, and I'm okay when food is sometimes bitter, as happens with cucumbers and eggplant, but when foods that aren't normally bitter are sweetened with bitter sweeteners, I really don't like them, even if it's a natural sweetener, like stevia.

Yes, I wish aspartame was used more.

I hate those stupid sugar alcohols, and stevia as well. Yuck.

I've found the taste of Monk Fruit to be preferable.

Monk fruit is quite expensive, so I'm afraid it will not become very popular in commercial products like candy bars and soft drinks. But for DIY it is certainly a nice option.

Thanks you for suggesting it.

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