Soda (or pop) comes in a few basic flavours: Cola, lemon-lime, orange, ginger. Every once in a while there’s a variation, like cherry or grape, and then there’s Dr. Pepper — an entirely separate thing of its own.
But that's all changing thanks to a host of new books and housewares. DIY mavens are having plenty of fun creating everything from custom root beer to fruit-and-herb combinations you’d never find in a store.
This trend has its roots in something vintage: the soda fountains that were popular in North America in the 20th century, where syrups were homemade and sodas were carbonated to order. There are still a few of these shops around, catering to both boomers who remember them from their youth and young people who are discovering artisan sodas for the first time.
Thanks in part to inspiration from Stephen Cresswell’s book Homemade Root Beer, Soda & Pop, Jeremy Butler began making his own syrups from scratch. Now he has his own soda book, Making Soda At Home, which comes out in June.
The good news is that making homemade sodas can be as simple as making a syrup and then adding some seltzer. You can also add carbonation using a device like a SodaStream or Fizzini, or an old-fashioned seltzer bottle. And if you’re really ambitious, you can add natural carbonation via champagne yeast — but you’ll have to be careful that you don’t over-carbonate.
You could also go really large scale, like Gia Giasullo did, and open your own soda shop. Giasullo and her business partner Peter Freeman stumbled across an old corner apothecary in Brooklyn, New York, which led to their shop Brooklyn Farmacy. "It had been closed for 14 years but we knew what it needed to be when it opened again,” she said. "That’s when we started learning about and making homemade, small batch soda syrups."
But how do you choose which flavours to experiment with for you DIY soda syrups? Butler interned at a flavour company while in school, where he worked on many beverage flavours. These days, he gets many of his ideas from the people he knows. Other flavours are inspired by things he tries to emulate, like apple pie. One of his personal favourites is a coconut lime soda — it was inspired by scents he’d come across in lotions and shampoos.
Whatever the flavours you choose, quality ingredients are key to a quality soda, Giasullo advised. "That means buying spices from a reputable purveyor, selecting seasonal fruit for maximum flavor, and seeking out the odd ingredients that will bring out the essence of the syrup,” she said.
If you’d like to try your hand at the artisanal soda trend, these 15 recipes — which include everything from coconut to lavender — are a great place to get started.
Homemade Soda Recipes
1. Basic Soda Syrup: Master this basic syrup and you can customize it any way you please.
2. White Peach-Lavender Soda: This soda’s unexpected combination uses fresh peaches, which are just about to be in season.
3. Finnish Lemon Soda: Known as sima, this lemon soda is popular during May Day celebrations in Finland.
4. Vanilla Bean Cream Soda: There’s nothing like cream soda made with real vanilla beans. This recipe also includes vanilla extract — use real instead of imitation for the best flavour.
5. Violet Soda: There are many flavours that don’t initially seem like a good choice for soda, but they can work unexpectedly well. Violet is one of them, but other edible flowers are also worth trying.
6. Very Plum Syrup: As this post indicates, there’s more than one way to carbonate: you could make this soda with a SodaStream or a similar device, or use an old-fashioned seltzer bottle.
7. Strawberry Coconut Cream Soda: The coolness of coconut and the taste of fresh strawberries makes this a refreshing soda for summer.
8. Ginger Ale: Homemade ginger ale is a revelation — the ginger is much more prominent when it’s freshly grated before mixing. You’ll never look at a bottle of Canada Dry the same way again.
9. Strawberry Soda: The bit of vinegar in the recipe for this soda syrup cuts the sweetness of the strawberries just enough.
10. Fresh Lime Soda: Limes are hard to come by right now, which might make this refreshing soda taste even better. You could easily go half and half with lemon, or alter the recipe with any other citrus fruit of your choosing.
11. Honey Herb Soda: Are you growing herbs on your windowsill or in a backyard garden? Here’s one more way to use your harvest. This simple recipe works well with any herbs you choose — have fun combining them into new flavours.
12. Watermelon Soda: Noticing a refreshing theme? This watermelon soda includes strawberries, but would work well with other berries too — give raspberries or blueberries a try.
13. Tangerine and Honey Soda: Honey is the perfect foil for the tartness of tangerine, but this recipe would also work well with blood oranges or grapefruit.
14. Kiwi Soda: Other tropical fruits are popular in sodas — why not kiwi? This syrup recipe uses agave nectar instead of sugar.
15. Root Beer: We couldn’t leave out root beer — and this recipe, with sarsaparilla, liquorice, and burdock, makes it clear where the name comes from.