Homemade Cola Recipe
Continuing my season of homemade soft drink recipes, next up is cola.
My recipe for cola is an adaption of the Cube Cola recipe which is in turn an adaption of the OpenCola recipe. My personal project would not have been possible without the groundwork put in by those guys. Loads of people have told me i’m silly for sharing my drink recipes, but without the sharing and knowledge of other people some of my drinks would not have been possible. Thankyou.
I have made both the Open Cola and Cube Cola recipes and they are both excellent copies of Coca-Cola coming at least as close as the supermarket alternatives This, for me, is the problem… it’s not really anything new. Both processes involve emulsifying essential oils into water using gum arabic then mixing with citric acid, powdered caffeine, sugar, colouring etc. The flavour comes from the combination of essential oils, the main components being sweet orange, lime, lemon, cinnamon, nutmeg, lavender, coriander. The end result truly is excellent, entirely drinkable and hardly distinguishable from the stuff in the shops. You can make it in huge batches and it keeps, the process is labour intensive but need only be done once every few weeks. The hardest part is the emulsification which requires lengthy use of an electric drill with a whisk attached in order to make the water and oils bind together.
So moving on from this I decided to devise my own recipe which would not only be easier to make but also produce original unique results. The plan was simple, replace the manufactured oils with real ingredients. I also dropped the caffeine from the drink all together and it turned into a project for a ‘healthier’ cola.
I’ve played around with the recipe a lot over the past year, adjusting levels of ingredients a little every time I make a batch. We’ve also sold a lot of it a long the way and customer feedback has been very useful. I’m not sure of the exact figures (even if I was I wouldn’t publish them anyway!) but we’ve made hundreds of litres of homemade cola over 12 months. So here is my recipe, it can of course be adjusted, if you prefer the fruity citrus aspects simply lower some of the spices down a bit.
Recipe
Fill a saucepan with 500ml water and add:
It will look like a mess and not even smell like cola but don’t worry! Leave it to simmer for 20-30 minutes then strain it through a tea towel into a large container whilst it’s still hot. After straining stir in 450g of caster sugar and 2 heaped teaspoons muscavado or any rich soft brown sugar. It is optional but you can at this point add some food colouring, caramel is the way to go, I was fortunate enough to get a sample (and i’ve still got loads left) straight from DD Williamson - they make the colouring for this stuff I heard of called Coca-Cola…!
In the end what you then have is a very strong cola flavoured syrup. After cooling simply mix 50ml syrup with 200ml soda water, or 1:4 ratio of any quantities. The recipe should make about 15 glasses cola.
Taste wise it is much more comparable to the ‘cola bottle’ sweets which you buy when you’re a kid (or all the time if you’re me!), which is what most people remark. I quite like the idea of making it seasonal, extra spices in the winter, try things like cloves etc. More citrus like lemon in the summer
Good luck to anyone who has a go at this, obviously some of the ingredients are easier to get hold of than others if you need any help please contact me. If you do have a go i’d love to hear your findings.
I am up for giving it a go!
Would using a blender not work for the emulsification given enough time?