Better Soda Pop

Most soda is pretty nasty, too sweet, too fizzy and chemical flavored. There are better products out there, the occasional premium run from a big-name manufacturer and old brands like Moxie or Cheerwine. Carbonating commercial syrups doesn't get you much except a little price break. Same crud, your own bottle. If you want better you have to do it yourself.

The best book on the subject is Steve Cresswell's Home Made Root Beer and Soda Pop. It's got good advice and plenty of recipes. The Rich Root Beer and Chinese Ginger Beer are easy to make and delicious. He has a few oddball things like switchels from old "receipt" books, mostly to add a little character.

One recipe which seemed interesting was "Jessamine Syrup".

Syrup of Jessamine. - Simple syrup, pint and a half; spirit of orris-root, one ounce; essence of ber-gamot, two drachms; essence of lemon, one drachm; essence of cinnamon five drops ; slightly warm the syrup, and add the essences.

Jasmine has a wonderful smell. But it's a pain to extract. The moth-pollinated flowers open at night which means collecting them at odd hours. There isn't that much essential oil in each tiny blossom. And worst of all, you can't extract it with distillation. Some of the most fragrant parts break down at fairly low temperatures. Unless you have a supercritcal CO2 extraction setup at home you're pretty much stuck with enfleurage. To say it's time consuming and fiddly is a gross understatement.

A cheaper easier knockoff sounded like a good idea.

The orris root spirit was the only fiddly part. Was this supposed to be a full extraction? A tincture? Orris water from a local Indian market didn't work very well.

I finally tracked down the book the recipe came from, The Manufacture of Liquors, Wines and Cordials Without the Aid of Distillation, Pierre Lacour 1868. All became clear. The recipe right above Jessamine specifies a thirty six hour tincture of powdered orris root in alcohol.

The result? Not bad. It doesn't taste quite like jasmine, but the combination of smells has the same sort of effect.

The oil-based flavors like jessamine and neroli. don't work so well in water. The oils float to the top and leave a noticeable after-burn on the tongue. They are excellent in milk-based products like ice cream, kefir and yogurt.