Cola from Scratch
Cola from Scratch
So today we are going to make some cola, the final product was pretty close to what you might get at the store, but I'll let you guys be the judge. This recipe has three main parts, we need to make the flavoring, which is called 7x for some reason, we need to prepare all of the other components that go into the soda syrup, and we need to cook it all together. All in all, this recipe is actually pretty simple so let's get into.
Making the 7x Flavoring
So there are two paths for making this, to get the right flavor you can use all of the essential oils required, but I wanted to try the other method which was to try to make this from scratch. To do that, we are going to use a ratio of flavors from the various components that comprise coca-cola.
So instead I took this recipe and tried to make my own 7x flavor compound using the actual ingredients that usually make up the essential oils, so for this flavoring agent we need
10 grams of orange peel
10 grams of lemon peel
4 grams of cinnamon
1 gram of nutmeg
1 gram of coriander seed
and lastly 4 grams of neroli or bitter orange, but I couldn't find any so I did some research and found that kaffir lime leaves are comprised 80% of neroli compounds so I used 4 grams of them instead.
The kind of funny thing is that you realize that coke is essentially just a citrus lemon drink with some spices in it. So we have our 7 ingredients that make up the 7x. Now ideally we need these as an essential oil, and there are plenty of ways to do this including steam distillation, or soaking in oil for a month or so, but I was in a bind for time, so I wanted to attempt a shortcut, which was to pound them down in a mortar and pestle, then put them into a pot with 75 mL or 5 tablespoons of coconut oil.
The next step is to take this pointed mixture and steep these ingredients in oil while heating it over low heat for about 30 minutes. It worked relatively well, albeit not as well as if you were to do the other methods, the main benefit was that it was done in about 30 minutes.
After the 30 minutes, I strained off the oil, and we then have this super fragrant coke flavored oil.
Emulsifying the mixture
So we have a slight problem here which is that the flavors are contained within oil, and we want to use water, water and oil repel each other so how do we get the two to mix, well we can use an emulsifier. Now we have two options here, 1 which is what I am going with is using alcohol as an emulsifying agent. The amount of alcohol we will use here is so minimal that it will be virtually nonexistent in the final coke, but if you do not want to use that you can also emulsify the water and oil using something called gum arabic. It's apparently pretty easy to find online, just make sure you get the food-grade stuff and not the stuff made for art.
Ok so to emulsify we need 10 mL of alcohol, I am using the moonshine I have made in a previous video since we want something that has a semi-neutral flavor and is mostly ethanol. We can then add 3 tablespoons of our flavored oil, and we need to whisk this until the bubbles of oil become too tiny to see. It should be pretty stable and not separate again after a few minutes if it does just remix it.
Once we have an emulsified mixture we can move on to the next step which is preparing the rest of the ingredients. First off we have our sugar, now in retrospect, I would half the amount of sugar here, I find typical colas to be overly sweet, but if you like that amount of sugar you can stick with the originally called for 600 grams, if you want it to be less sweet you can reduce this. We will also need 100 grams of sugar to caramelize. This will help with the color and flavor. Next, we need 3.5 grams of citric acid, and lastly, we need 50 mL or about 1 lime worth of lime juice. The version I am making will be caffeine free, but if you choose to add some caffeine, it would be good to prepare that as well. Lastly, we need some water, 500 mL, or about 2 cups worth.
Making the Syrup
The caramel when water is ‘just’ added.
Ok so now let's get started on the last part. Here we need to simply pour our 100 grams of sugar that we want to caramelize into a pan over medium-low heat. Let the pan heat up and be sure to stir the sugar as it starts to melt. It will start to turn brown and this is exactly what we want. At the point where all of the sugar has melted, and we have a nice brown color, we can add in our water. It will immediately seize up and crystalize, but not to worry. just try to stir this mixture up, and eventually, the caramel will begin to dissolve into the water. Once it has, you can pour in the rest of the sugar, the citric acid, and lastly the lime juice.
I have always heard that coca-cola without any food coloring would be green, I didn't really believe it, but after adding the lime juice the whole syrup we are making turned green. To give this a little more of a realistic coke color, I will be adding in some black food coloring I have, but that part is completely optional.
Ok, once everything is mixed, we can pull this syrup off the stove and let it cool down. I let mine cool for a few hours, at which point it was time to make a soda. We need roughly 2 tablespoons of the syrup to 12 ozs or 330 mL of soda water. But really you can adjust the syrup ratio for your taste. Give it a mixture, add a few ice cubes and that’s it!
It tasted similar, but not quite like regular coke, in the future, I would definitely reduce the amount of sugar and play with the flavoring ratios a little more, but that all part of the fun.
I hope you enjoyed the video and if you did, please be sure to check out some of my other content!
Condensed Recipe:
7x Flavoring:
10 grams of orange peel
10 grams of lemon peel
4 grams of cinnamon
1 gram of nutmeg
1 gram of coriander seed
4 grams of neroli, bitter orange, or Kaffir lime leaves
75 mL or 5 tablespoons of coconut oil
Other Ingredients:
10 mL of alcohol
600 grams of sugar
100 grams of sugar to caramelize
50 mL of lime (1 lime)
500 mL water
3.5 g citric acid
Instructions:
Grind the 7x ingredients in a mortar and pestle, heat in coconut oil for 10 minutes over low heat.
Filter the flavored oil from the raw ingredients.
Whisk flavored oil and alchohol to emulsify.
Caramelize sugar, and add water to make a syrup, add citric acid after cool, whisk in flavoring.
Add 1-2 tablespoons of syrup to sparkling water and enjoy!
Enjoy!