How to Make a Flavour Essence for Soda Syrup and Cocktails

Some of the best sodas, think Pepsi, Coke and rootbeer, are made using the essential oils from fruits and spices as a flavouring. Using all-natural essential oil is a perfect way to capture the essence without the bitterness and astringency from extraction methods. However, oil and water do not mix and when most people try to make their own sodsa this way they end up with a cloudy syrup. Though that doesn't affect the taste, it can look less than appealing.

The method makes a clear flavour syrup made from essential oils and it is the same technique pharmacists used at soda fountains in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It was a point of pride to make clear syrups. This method is simple, only requires a few ingredients and a bit of patience.

If you are unsure what essential oils are considered safe, please refer to the FDA's Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) database.

Here is a video on which oil are safe and where to find them:

#soda #science #flavour #drinks

[vrtsgme]

Darcy, There are a lot of YouTubers out there just publishing 'stuff', there are far fewer producing material that can have a material impact on those aspiring to do what you are teaching. These videos you have produced to date are so complete, then add your book "Fix the Pumps" and you have all the basis covered. Thank you for taking the time to produce such a professional platform. Please keep them coming! (I'm waiting for the lab equipment to land to get on with building my library of essences and tinctures!). THANK YOU!

[vincentn]

Mirroring the footage of you writing on the glass was a really clever way of filming this. I'd recommend setting up some time stamps, this has a ton of information. Awesome video!

[damionandy]

Dude, this was so cool to watch. Would love to see you make some soda stream drinks with it (alcoholic and craft soda)

[jadenhair]

Love this! Just bought a vacuum filter and haven't taken it out of box yet. Can't wait to play!

[tomj]

Jeez, I just downloaded "Fix the Pumps", I'm 50 pages in and can't put it down! Fascinating history and I can't wait to get to the drink recipes. During the pandemic I came up with a few theme nights one of which is "Soda Fountain Dessert Nights" part of which are sodas made with real juices and fruit with lower sugars. We don't really drink store bought soda save for the occasional root beer/float in our frosty mugs so we don't need much seltzer. I solved this quandary by going with 6pks of Canada Dry 1/2 liter bottles and my wife and I split an entire bottle so nothing goes flat. I was looking to restock this holiday season as that's when it goes on sale but no one has it in stock and it's even completely disappeared from store websites so I may have to come up with a new plan. I always wanted to get my own soda fountain but it's just not reasonable on such a small scale unfortunately so I've been coming up with what works for us instead. Cheers and thanks for the excellent read!

[terrylcoltonphd]

Can you post a link with a list of the equipment used and where best to get the items.

[johannadht]

Now I want to buy a vacuum filter 😅 thank for that video, it was very instructive

[joewansbrough]

Your content amazes me! I came to your channel due to a reference and link from JF at Truffles on the Rocks and have been watching you vids for the last couple of days.

[cuitpoisson]

Typo on screen for the formula at 10:52. The essential oil is listed as 1 oz (15mL). Based on your other video, it seems like 15mL is correct and so it should be 0.5 oz.

[johnhayes]

Please do a demo of several different flavors of one? Drink like rootbeer. And possibly a follow up with how to go about deconstruction of a Drink you may like to make similarly

[braintobody]

This a educational video not for kids ... Great information I have been looking for

[alistergeorge]

Great video Darcey! It's giving me so many ideas. Keep up the great work, I can't wait for the next one

[ayschucks]

Really appreciate this video. I was turned on to it by a Punch article about a new or newly revived approach to making Donn's mix for the Zombie but I am also a soda stream person who hasn't found any syrups I like.

[urouroniwa]

Thanks for this! It really cleared up a lot of questions I had on the topic. Like a lot of technical topics, the typical sources of information on the internet (and other places) are predictably shallow :-) BTW, I wanted to thank you for your book as well. It was a great read and also very helpful. Anyway, I've only just discovered your Youtube videos and am eagerly working my way through them. I really appreciate all of the hard work you are putting into this!

[JamesRyhl]

Loved the video! I was wondering if it is safe to use sports chalk for my magnesium carbonate. I've found some seemingly good brands that only list magnesium carbonate as an ingredient but not sure if it might be cut with something harmful. Thanks.

[DanielTorres-ubel]

Thank you for this extremely helpful information. I have watched many of your videos and read through many comments but I can’t find any links for the equipment you use anywhere. I would love to get started on making a gin essence but I don’t know where to start. I need to buy dried botanicals only? I am a bit unclear about using oils vs. dried plant matter. And then I’m not sure about the parts of the percolator that I need to buy. In the gin video it looks like a metal base and stand with a vessel and a valve that has a filter at the bottom for infusing the navy strength gin but in the video it looks like there’s only juniper berries in there. Was that just for display purposes or is that all you use for gin essence? And - Is that an ambient temperature extraction? Sorry for all the questions, I am not a chemist but I am eager to make a zero proof (0.1%) gin and tonic that doesn’t suck and this seems like the most promising option. Thanks again.

[wilhelmschubert]

Great video! If you want to make a sugar free drink, could you mix the essence with sparkling water and artificial sweetener and citric acid or how would you do it? thank you.

[MartinDoudoroffLLC]

Superb tutorial. And impressive backwards writing!

[finsprings]

Do you have any recommendations for online places to acquire the essential oils for this?

[maisound]

This video is great! I love your work and how you deliver information in such a straightforward way. I've always done sodas starting from a flavour syrup and never used essential oils before, I'm guessing this increases the shelf life a lot? What would the shelf life of a soda made this way be? Thank you so much for everything you do, love your book., love your website, love your work!