If you like the taste of soda but don’t want the high fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners used in the diet soda, what’s a @shortfitgrandma to do?
Believe or not, there ARE solutions other than forcing water down your throat. I am lucky enough to have well water that tastes amazing, but occasionally I would like to have something different. I also use essential oils in my water and in my cooking, but today I simply. wanted. soda. Have you ever been to a restaurant with your friends and just the SOUND of the bubbles fizzing across the table makes you drool? Well, maybe not drool, but certainly weaken your resolve. I found a solution! It is a book that shows you how to make a Very close, if not better, rendition of Coca Cola and is simply called “Homemade Soda.” It’s been around for awhile and I don’t know how I missed it. Or how all the weightloss, keto, bariatric, and diet sites missed it too!
In 2011, This American Life aired a program entitled Original Recipe, all about uncovering what was possibly the original formula for Coca-Cola. They had to post on their site that they were not claiming it was the recipe. It was quite the deal! Even gaining so much traffic that their website was temporarily shut down. So what went into this alleged original formula? Oils of orange, lemon, nutmeg, coriander, cinnamon, and neroli, an oil derived from the blossom of the bitter orange tree. I am even more intrigued because I already am an essential oil lover!
All recipes in Homemade Soda have been adapted so that they can be mixed with seltzer, charged up with a siphon, or in some cases brewed to create natural bubbles. You do not need a Sodastream or similar soda-making product to produce the recipes in this book. A soda siphon of any kind or champagne yeast and an empty 1 liter plastic bottle will do the trick.
Serious Eats has this to say about the cola recipe (the book has many different recipes!): “With its herbal citrus notes, this Natural Cola is far more nuanced and delicate than today’s Coke, and it lacks that certain tooth-aching sugariness. Its complexity is almost amaro-like—dark and filled with rich, sweet aromatics, a more grown up take on a cola.”
This is the first Amazon product I have ever reviewed on this site or posted to purchase, so if you run into problems, please let me know!