14 ms·

DIY Soft Drinks

738 points by _Microft 6mo ago

malfist 6mo ago
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)
s0rce 6mo ago
I liked this video about recreating coke https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDkH3EbWTYc&t=176s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDkH3EbWTYc&t=176s
- SideburnsOfDoom 6mo ago
  Yes, this video (and HN commentary https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46543509 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.
aitchnyu 6mo ago
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.
- _Microft 6mo ago
  A easy solution might be to mix the concentrate with sparkling/carbonated water?
- atombender 6mo ago
  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.
  - quobnk 6mo ago
    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
    - atombender 6mo ago
      Nice, I will have to try that!
- Fnoord 6mo ago
  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).
AdmiralAsshat 6mo ago
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/ 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.
- toast0 6mo ago
  20 bucks for 1.75ml of cola seems like pretty bad value.
  - AdmiralAsshat 6mo ago
    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.
    - deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
    - gryfft 6mo ago
      An oz is ~29.57 ml (mililiters), so I think perhaps you meant that you made 1.7 l (liters)?
    - deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
    - IanCal 6mo ago
      Do you mean L? ml to me would be millilitres and one fluid ounce is ~30ml.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
nchmy 6mo ago
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.
- jamiek88 6mo ago
  Oooh that sounds good! I’ve been meaning to add fermented stuff to my diet.
  - Scoundreller 6mo ago
    me too, thinking of buying fruit juices and yeasts. These taxes are killing me.
  - psalaun 6mo ago
    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!
    - jamiek88 6mo ago
      Thanks! I think I might! I’m not very adventurous food/taste wise so that sounds like a good entry point.
- hattmall 6mo ago
  what did you bottle it in?
  - nchmy 6mo ago
    Bottles?
    - hattmall 6mo ago
tareqak 6mo ago
Perfectly Replicating Coca Cola (It Took Me A Year) - LabCoatz : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDkH3EbWTYc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDkH3EbWTYc This content creator used a mass spectrometer to find the flavoring used in Coca-Cola.
- s0rce 6mo ago
  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.
- koalacolawhen 6mo ago
  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.
oldgregg 6mo ago
Jumps through 100 hoops to make coke... doesn't add cocaine?! :) Add modifinil and peptides and you'll have your latest soylent startup.
- BizarroLand 6mo ago
  bpc-157 soda would sell like hotcakes. Putting the "Heal" in "Healthy"
- jolt42 6mo ago
  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.
nulld3v 6mo ago
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.
- LightBug1 6mo ago
  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!
- eek2121 6mo ago
  I Googled the BDS Boycott list at a glance...the top link (https://bdsmovement.net/Guide-to-BDS-Boycott 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-pepsi-price-fixing-scheme-lawsuit/88083796007/ 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-2cd8b42c824b0400fb814e60b88f3284 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.
  - undersuit 6mo ago
mattmaroon 6mo ago
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.
- detritus 6mo ago
  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.
  - cogman10 6mo ago
    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.
peaxkl 6mo ago
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-Wholesale/dp/B081MY3RRR?th=1 https://www.amazon.com/Playadito-Traditional-Colonia-Liebig-...
- BoredPositron 6mo ago
  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?
  - peaxkl 6mo ago
    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.
    - lopis 6mo ago
      Buying different brands will change the taste even more.
    - 6mo ago
varispeed 6mo ago
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.
- steve-atx-7600 6mo ago
  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.
SamDc73 6mo ago
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!
- rootusrootus 6mo ago
  > 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.
  - dlcarrier 6mo ago
    I presume the comment was referring to the lack of greatness in the flavor. Sucralose tastes much better, for one.
    - rootusrootus 6mo ago
      Aspartame tastes fine to me. I think it's one of those things that some people can taste and others cannot.
      - dlcarrier 6mo ago
        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.
  - amelius 6mo ago
    Yes, I wish aspartame was used more. I hate those stupid sugar alcohols, and stevia as well. Yuck.
DonHopkins 6mo ago
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 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 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 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi8o06qv7m8 The Origin of the Coca Cola Flavour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-1tGNobqi0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-1tGNobqi0 How to Make Cola, like Coca-Cola or Pepsi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2yLvseG5UM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2yLvseG5UM What Coke and Pepsi Don’t Tell You About Caramel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7CFZAw3dkA 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 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.
- xp84 6mo ago
  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
frugalmail 6mo ago
I was completely expecting a self-carbonation solution. It's not disappointing, just got a different cool thing :)
amarant 6mo ago
Somewhat surprised to learn that cola recipes don't actually contain any kola-nut!
znpy 6mo ago
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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDkH3EbWTYc
miguel_martin 6mo ago
I highly recommend art of drink: https://www.artofdrink.com/ https://www.artofdrink.com/
- calmbonsai 6mo ago
  Yes! Also his book "Fix the Pumps" https://a.co/d/0intXOn1 https://a.co/d/0intXOn1 which has a bizarre title and cover art, but is right up there with "Liquid Intelligence" for traditional sodas.
jackdawed 6mo ago
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.
- Scoundreller 6mo ago
  > acetic acid (Vitamin C) ascorbic acid!
  - userbinator 6mo ago
    Acetic acid is vinegar. Not something I'd like to taste in any soft drink.
    - riffraff 6mo ago
      I don't like vinegar much either, but vinegar in drinks does have a certain tradition e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posca
      - tdeck 6mo ago
        Or more recently Switchel, which was popular in 19th century America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchel I think the ready availability or citrus fruits caused their decline.
        riffraff 6mo ago
        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) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrub_(drink)
delgaudm 6mo ago
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.
- kasey_junk 6mo ago
  Try walnut or cherry bitters sometimes for a similar but different enough to be interesting flavor.
- mauvehaus 6mo ago
  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.
- rconti 6mo ago
  wait, are those the only ingredients?
- steve-atx-7600 6mo ago
  I started out there but really love the bitters from these guys https://allthebitter.com/ https://allthebitter.com/ vs using the agnostura bitters I had from a liquor store. Zero alcohol in them also.
ChuckMcM 6mo ago
If I could figure out diet dr. pepper this could be life changing :-)
- viccis 6mo ago
  Same but for Diet Coke. Would make ridiculous amounts of it
foresto 6mo ago
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.
- rootusrootus 6mo ago
  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.
- collin128 6mo ago
  I bought an Aarke (soda stream comp) and a CO2 hose. Now I use one of the 5lb tanks. It's great.
  - gorgonical 6mo ago
    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!
analog31 6mo ago
One thing I noticed was: Where's the phosphoric acid? Does the use of gum arabic eliminate the need?
- dlcarrier 6mo ago
  The recipe is using citric acid, instead. The tastes are slightly different, but citric acid is easier to get.
culi 6mo ago
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.
- littlexsparkee 6mo ago
  Fun fact - erythroxylum vaccinifolium makes for a potent aphrodisiac.
  - culi 6mo ago
    I see that it's marketed that way. I don't know if I experienced that. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention
koolba 6mo ago
> 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 https://youtu.be/2za2IK8FQoM
- acomjean 6mo ago
  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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_Soda
- rconti 6mo ago
  I wonder if we'd have the same reaction if cola had never been darkened. We wouldn't, right?
the__alchemist 6mo ago
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)
- mattkrause 6mo ago
  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.
- dlcarrier 6mo ago
  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.
  - BizarroLand 6mo ago
    Everything in the universe, given the correct proportion and duration, is lethal to human beings.
tdeck 6mo ago
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.
- dyauspitr 6mo ago
  How does this not become alcoholic?
  - SideburnsOfDoom 6mo ago
    I understand that Kvass is around 1% alcohol. By Russian standards, this is "non-alcoholic".
    - mrguyorama 6mo ago
      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.
  - ymolodtsov 6mo ago
    Usually they remove the alcohol later. The taste is similar to a alcohol-free Guinness (but sweeter).
  - ideasarecool 6mo ago
    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.
  - t-3 6mo ago
    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.
tiveriny 6mo ago
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.
henrikn 6mo ago
Recipe and accompanying video here: https://www.tastinghistory.com/recipes/switchel https://www.tastinghistory.com/recipes/switchel Tried making it. Certainly interesting! But not something I’ll make again.
brikym 6mo ago
I knew before clicking it would be a German.
- Fnoord 6mo ago
  But did you know the fingernails were clipped perfectly? What a delight to see in these photos.
sprydrax0 6mo ago
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deleted 6mo ago
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hybirdss 6mo ago
the look on the cashier's face when you ask for one bean is half the product
malloryerik 6mo ago
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.
- bombcar 6mo ago
  Sparkling iced tea would likely hit a spot.
  - redblacktree 6mo ago
    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.
- jerf 6mo ago
  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.
juvvel 6mo ago
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.
benjaminoakes 6mo ago
I love this idea. However, I found the article difficult to read because the images are far too large in terms of file size.
kfk 6mo ago
Can you make chinotto?
projektfu 6mo ago
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.
- atombender 6mo ago
  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.
  - projektfu 6mo ago
    Yep, one of those places where the US thinks it's bad and millions of people elsewhere are just fine.
freedom_dev 6mo ago
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
apparent 6mo ago
> 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.
partyficial 6mo ago
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.

738 points by _Microft 6mo ago

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)

s0rce 6mo ago

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

SideburnsOfDoom 6mo ago
Yes, this video (and HN commentary https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46543509 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.

aitchnyu 6mo ago

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.

_Microft 6mo ago
A easy solution might be to mix the concentrate with sparkling/carbonated water?
atombender 6mo ago
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.
- quobnk 6mo ago
  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
  - atombender 6mo ago
    Nice, I will have to try that!
Fnoord 6mo ago
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).

AdmiralAsshat 6mo ago

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/ 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.

toast0 6mo ago
20 bucks for 1.75ml of cola seems like pretty bad value.
- AdmiralAsshat 6mo ago
  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.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  - gryfft 6mo ago
    An oz is ~29.57 ml (mililiters), so I think perhaps you meant that you made 1.7 l (liters)?
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  - IanCal 6mo ago
    Do you mean L? ml to me would be millilitres and one fluid ounce is ~30ml.

deleted 6mo ago

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nchmy 6mo ago

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.

jamiek88 6mo ago
Oooh that sounds good! I’ve been meaning to add fermented stuff to my diet.
- Scoundreller 6mo ago
  me too, thinking of buying fruit juices and yeasts. These taxes are killing me.
- psalaun 6mo ago
  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!
  - jamiek88 6mo ago
    Thanks! I think I might! I’m not very adventurous food/taste wise so that sounds like a good entry point.
hattmall 6mo ago
what did you bottle it in?
- nchmy 6mo ago
  Bottles?
  - hattmall 6mo ago

tareqak 6mo ago

Perfectly Replicating Coca Cola (It Took Me A Year) - LabCoatz : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDkH3EbWTYc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDkH3EbWTYc This content creator used a mass spectrometer to find the flavoring used in Coca-Cola.

s0rce 6mo ago
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.
koalacolawhen 6mo ago
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.

oldgregg 6mo ago

Jumps through 100 hoops to make coke... doesn't add cocaine?! :) Add modifinil and peptides and you'll have your latest soylent startup.

BizarroLand 6mo ago
bpc-157 soda would sell like hotcakes. Putting the "Heal" in "Healthy"
jolt42 6mo ago
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.

nulld3v 6mo ago

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.

LightBug1 6mo ago
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!
eek2121 6mo ago
I Googled the BDS Boycott list at a glance...the top link (https://bdsmovement.net/Guide-to-BDS-Boycott 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-pepsi-price-fixing-scheme-lawsuit/88083796007/ 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-2cd8b42c824b0400fb814e60b88f3284 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.
- undersuit 6mo ago

mattmaroon 6mo ago

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.

detritus 6mo ago
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.
- cogman10 6mo ago
  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.

peaxkl 6mo ago

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-Wholesale/dp/B081MY3RRR?th=1 https://www.amazon.com/Playadito-Traditional-Colonia-Liebig-...

BoredPositron 6mo ago
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?
- peaxkl 6mo ago
  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.
  - lopis 6mo ago
    Buying different brands will change the taste even more.
  - 6mo ago

varispeed 6mo ago

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.

steve-atx-7600 6mo ago
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.

SamDc73 6mo ago

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!

rootusrootus 6mo ago
> 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.
- dlcarrier 6mo ago
  I presume the comment was referring to the lack of greatness in the flavor. Sucralose tastes much better, for one.
  - rootusrootus 6mo ago
    Aspartame tastes fine to me. I think it's one of those things that some people can taste and others cannot.
    - dlcarrier 6mo ago
      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.
- amelius 6mo ago
  Yes, I wish aspartame was used more. I hate those stupid sugar alcohols, and stevia as well. Yuck.

DonHopkins 6mo ago

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 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 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 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi8o06qv7m8 The Origin of the Coca Cola Flavour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-1tGNobqi0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-1tGNobqi0 How to Make Cola, like Coca-Cola or Pepsi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2yLvseG5UM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2yLvseG5UM What Coke and Pepsi Don’t Tell You About Caramel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7CFZAw3dkA 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 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.

xp84 6mo ago
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

frugalmail 6mo ago

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

amarant 6mo ago

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

znpy 6mo ago

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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDkH3EbWTYc

miguel_martin 6mo ago

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

calmbonsai 6mo ago
Yes! Also his book "Fix the Pumps" https://a.co/d/0intXOn1 https://a.co/d/0intXOn1 which has a bizarre title and cover art, but is right up there with "Liquid Intelligence" for traditional sodas.

jackdawed 6mo ago

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.

Scoundreller 6mo ago
> acetic acid (Vitamin C) ascorbic acid!
- userbinator 6mo ago
  Acetic acid is vinegar. Not something I'd like to taste in any soft drink.
  - riffraff 6mo ago
    I don't like vinegar much either, but vinegar in drinks does have a certain tradition e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posca
    - tdeck 6mo ago
      Or more recently Switchel, which was popular in 19th century America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchel I think the ready availability or citrus fruits caused their decline.
      - riffraff 6mo ago
        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) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrub_(drink)

delgaudm 6mo ago

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.

kasey_junk 6mo ago
Try walnut or cherry bitters sometimes for a similar but different enough to be interesting flavor.
mauvehaus 6mo ago
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.
rconti 6mo ago
wait, are those the only ingredients?
steve-atx-7600 6mo ago
I started out there but really love the bitters from these guys https://allthebitter.com/ https://allthebitter.com/ vs using the agnostura bitters I had from a liquor store. Zero alcohol in them also.

ChuckMcM 6mo ago

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

viccis 6mo ago
Same but for Diet Coke. Would make ridiculous amounts of it

foresto 6mo ago

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.

rootusrootus 6mo ago
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.
collin128 6mo ago
I bought an Aarke (soda stream comp) and a CO2 hose. Now I use one of the 5lb tanks. It's great.
- gorgonical 6mo ago
  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!

analog31 6mo ago

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

dlcarrier 6mo ago
The recipe is using citric acid, instead. The tastes are slightly different, but citric acid is easier to get.

culi 6mo ago

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.

littlexsparkee 6mo ago
Fun fact - erythroxylum vaccinifolium makes for a potent aphrodisiac.
- culi 6mo ago
  I see that it's marketed that way. I don't know if I experienced that. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention

koolba 6mo ago

> 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 https://youtu.be/2za2IK8FQoM

acomjean 6mo ago
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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_Soda
rconti 6mo ago
I wonder if we'd have the same reaction if cola had never been darkened. We wouldn't, right?

the__alchemist 6mo ago

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)

mattkrause 6mo ago
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.
dlcarrier 6mo ago
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.
- BizarroLand 6mo ago
  Everything in the universe, given the correct proportion and duration, is lethal to human beings.

tdeck 6mo ago

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.

dyauspitr 6mo ago
How does this not become alcoholic?
- SideburnsOfDoom 6mo ago
  I understand that Kvass is around 1% alcohol. By Russian standards, this is "non-alcoholic".
  - mrguyorama 6mo ago
    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.
- ymolodtsov 6mo ago
  Usually they remove the alcohol later. The taste is similar to a alcohol-free Guinness (but sweeter).
- ideasarecool 6mo ago
  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.
- t-3 6mo ago
  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.

tiveriny 6mo ago

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.

henrikn 6mo ago

Recipe and accompanying video here: https://www.tastinghistory.com/recipes/switchel https://www.tastinghistory.com/recipes/switchel Tried making it. Certainly interesting! But not something I’ll make again.

brikym 6mo ago

I knew before clicking it would be a German.

Fnoord 6mo ago
But did you know the fingernails were clipped perfectly? What a delight to see in these photos.

sprydrax0 6mo ago

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deleted 6mo ago

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hybirdss 6mo ago

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

malloryerik 6mo ago

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.

bombcar 6mo ago
Sparkling iced tea would likely hit a spot.
- redblacktree 6mo ago
  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.
jerf 6mo ago
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.

juvvel 6mo ago

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.

benjaminoakes 6mo ago

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

kfk 6mo ago

Can you make chinotto?

projektfu 6mo ago

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.

atombender 6mo ago
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.
- projektfu 6mo ago
  Yep, one of those places where the US thinks it's bad and millions of people elsewhere are just fine.

freedom_dev 6mo ago

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

apparent 6mo ago

> 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.

partyficial 6mo ago

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.