Important Soda Watch Update

[bloodyrosemccoy]

So the current homemade soda scores are as follows:

Extracts

1 flatass root beer
1 fairly passable ginger ale
1 delicious cream soda

Scratch

1 awesome ginger ale with lemon
1 flatass root beer
1 attempt at root beer with vanilla and brown sugar in which I seem to have accidentally made ACTUAL beer instead
1 birch beer attempt that somehow became Ent-draught NO SERIOUSLY HOW DID I DO THAT*
1 pretty darn good three-root root beer that tastes very licorice-y

I think the brown sugar is out. The two I made with it--the birch beer and the root beer--are kind of bitter. White sugar seems to make it more soda-ish. I'm gonna try another straight root beer now that I've gotten the hang of actual carbonation, and try the birch beer again with white sugar and a lot less birch.

I also want to try cream soda from scratch, but I have to get hold of some cream of tartar first. And I'm starting to think about figuring out my own recipes. I'm thinking I could do a lot with tea blends, because OF COURSE I AM. Come on, though--how can you not agree that an Earl Grey Cream Soda could be completely awesome if I figured out how to do it right?

And even if I never figure that out, it's nice to know that those frosted soda mugs we've kept in the freezer for years are finally earning their keep.


Bonus Points: Was willing to bet my pants there was an actual Ent-draught recipe on Google. There are about 2.36 million reasons why I get to keep my pants.



*The weirdest part is that I've drunk several bottles and still can't tell if I like it. "This is too beery," I think. "But it's also refreshing. But the aftertaste is bitter. But it's also kind of got some mentholish flavor that's rather intriguing. But maybe it'll resolve if I take another sip." And over it all is "This tastes like I'm drinking a goddamn FOREST."

Comments

[deathling.livejournal.com]

Oh my gosh tea soda sounds amazing! I think you could market this! Also I don't like soda but Canada Dry's green tea ginger ale is actually consumable.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've been wanting to try a few varieties. A couple of the sources I've got have a few tea soda recipes, but they seem not to know about the ideal steep temperatures/times for teas. Fortunately, I do!

[cjtremlett.livejournal.com]

I knew someone who made root beer beer deliberately, but I've never heard of anyone doing it by accident!

I, too, am intrigued by the concept of Earl Grey cream soda.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

It was beer-FLAVORED, anyway.

As for Earl Grey Cream Soda, I'll keep you posted! PROBABLY WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

Have you tried unrefined sugars? Standard brown sugar is just white sugar with some additives, which might be contributing to the bitter taste.

[dinogrrl.livejournal.com]

I was going to ask along this line of thought!
What kind of brown sugar are you using? Dark brown sugar has a butt-ton of molasses in it and will turn food bitter if you don't compensate for that. The light version has less molasses and generally doesn't make things taste bitter unless you're really loading it in. You could also try mixing brown and regular sugar if you still want the molasses taste. Or I guess for that matter, you could just do regular sugar and separate molasses.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

That's what I'm thinking. I was following recipes under the impression that the people who wrote them knew what they were doing, even if I was a little suspicious. It turns out my suspicions were well-founded. So I think I will probably go with the white sugar + molasses option in the future.

[dinogrrl.livejournal.com]

Molasses is a powerful weapon. Use it wisely.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

*grin* Will do.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

I kind of want to try the Ent-draught.