Review: Sarsi

My daughter and I decided to stop into a local Asian grocer to kill some time while her sister participated in swim lessons, and after browsing cluttered aisles and overflowing shelves packed to the brim with myriad pre-packaged food products that all appeared to contain seafood of some kind, we finally decided to make our way back to the front to check out the eighties-style display coolers to look for obscure sodas. Boy, did I find one(along with another fruity soda that was a new brand but old favorite, which I will review another time).

I found Sarsi. A short, rather squat bottle with a red-white and blue color scheme reminiscent of two of the three most popular cola brands(Pepsi and Royal Crown), and the sickly-thick brown color to match. I got out to car, and went to open it and take a sip-only to find that it was(unsurprisingly) not a twist-off cap. So, I proceeded to unbuckle myself(safety first!), and my daughter and haul the sodas back inside in search of a bottle opener. I asked the man at the front, whom instructed me that the lady working in the cooler had one. After following my nose to the cooler-which at once reeked of rotting fish and dirty bleach-water, I had freed my beverages from their metallically capped prisons.
I got outside, took a sip, and was floored by an amazing flavor. It was familiar, but I couldn't place it. It wasn't like any other cola(although it had small hints of the background bouqet of China Cola), but it also wasn't like any other one thing I'd had before.
So-research was in order. The bottle let me know this specific one was from Singapore, but upon researching the brand name I learned it is produced in the Phillipines, and is a Sarsaparilla beverage. That explains why I recognized the flavor. I also discovered that Coca-Cola tried to bring down Sarsi's hold on the "root beer" market(not that I'd ever call this a root beer)  by releasing Barq's to the area. Lo and behold, Sarsi destroyed Barq's in sales, so Coca-Cola stopped competing- they pulled Barq's from the shelves/restaurants in the Phillipines and simply bought Sarsi. I guess that was one way of doing it. Anyways-onward!

Packaging - 4.5/5
Simple, to the point-but slightly misleading. I was expecting something a little more cola-like in taste based on the colors alone. Don't really know what color it should be, but maybe blue over orange would have been good-Cola Root Beer would have both been evoked and left me with no expectations but no surprises.

Aroma - 3/5
Smelled slightly herbally, and very sweet. Sugar and slightly root beer-esque, but not much so.

Taste - 5.5/7
Tastes good. Sweet, a little tart, some tang to it, and quite drinkable overall. I could drink this to refresh myself, to have something to sip on during the car-ride to work. Strongly preferred over a lot of other drinks-wouldn't consider it a root beer or a cola-maybe something in between.

Overall - 13/17
Really well put together soda. I see why it sold so well and has been distributed across the globe. It's incredibly flavorful without drawing many comparisons.

Supplies: Making homemade soda yourself-getting started.

So, ready to make your own soda? There are a few supplies you'll need, and why you'll need them. Most of these items should be pretty readily available to you in your local area, but I've provided you with links so that you may purchase those things you can't find.
1 large Stock Pot (I recommend at least an 8 qt.)-if you make gallon batches, this will give you room to stir and strain if necessary without worrying about spilling over the side. You can go bigger if you want to make larger batches, but to start off with it's a good guideline.

1 case(24x) of 12oz Amber long neck bottles. Each gallon batch you make will yield about 10 full bottles and 1 tester bottle(1 gallon=128 oz.), so you'll have enough bottles to make two separate batches. These bottles are really thick as they are intended for use in making homemade beer, so it's really unlikely you will run across exploding bottle problems. You can also use 2x 2 liter bottles that have been rinsed and sanitized beforehand for each 1 gallon batch, but if you're working with extracts they can stain the bottles and leave them with the flavor of the extract, plus you might find some of the chemicals from the bottles seeping into your brew, creating off flavors. However, these have their use if you really want to avoid exploding bottles.

1 Ladle to help fill your bottles. I recommend stainless steel over plastic to ensure proper sterilization-the last thing you want is a spoiled batch due to some unseen bacteria.

1 Funnel with Strainer for filling your bottles. The strainer will come in handy reducing the amount of unwanted material in each bottle. Remember to check and clear it after every couple of bottles.

Getting a pail with spigot, tubing and siphon(like the one from my New Toy article) make life much easier when you move into larger batches, but if you're making 1 gallon batches it's a pain in the ass because you need to lean the bucket forward to get the batch to drain through the tubing under 1 gallon. The funnel/ladle method is a little time consuming, but yields the best results for 12 oz. bottles. You can skip the ladle completely if you're just using 2 liter bottles, but you probably have a ladle in your kitchen already anyways.

1 bottle of Rainbow Soda Extracts, your preferred flavor. It's easiest to start off with an extract to give you an idea if you're going to like brewing homemade soda for yourself, and also gives you consistent results over using your own ingredients. If you're a fan of Faygo ROCK N RYE, you can mix equal parts Homebrew Cola & Homebrew Cream Soda and get a pretty good clone.

1 C&H Pure Cane White Sugar, 10 lb. Cane sugar gives the best flavor, and a 10 lb. bag is enough for roughly 10 gallons of homemade soda. More or less depending on your sweetness preference, but 2 cups(which is about 1 lb.) of sugar per gallon is a pretty standard amount. That'll yield about 38 g sugar/12 oz. bottle. Beet sugar will work as well, and you can always consider other flavoring alternatives-honey, brown sugar, molasses, agave nectar, stevia, equal, splenda, or sweet n low. Various amounts of these can be used or combined for different flavors. Start off with whatever is conveniently available though.

1 package of ale yeast. I have previously recommended use of champagne yeast, but have recently come to find out that ale yeast will usually shut itself down when the pressure inside the bottle becomes too high, as it is no longer a friendly environment for the yeast to multiply. This means there is almost no chance of exploding bottles.

1 Measuring Spoon Set. It is absolutely necessary to have 1/8 tsp. measuring spoon so that you can measure out your yeast-this is all that is required for a 1 gallon batch. It's good to have measuring spoons for a variety of reasons, but that one is a must have.

1 Pyrex 2-Cup Measuring Cup. Perfect size for measuring out your sugar. After using it for your sugar, you can also put 1/4 cup of bath-water warm(about 100 degrees) water in the bottom along with your yeast to kick start your yeast.

Gold Crown Bottle Caps or Black Bottle Caps to cap your bottles.
Bottle Capper - Red Baron for Homebrew You can also buy a Bench Bottle Capper, but it's three times as expensive and works just as well. The bench capper is a little easier to operate, but it's a small amount of convenience for the price-and not really recommended when you're first starting out.

That should cover everything you need to get started. Most of the supplies are probably already sitting around your house, and most of the supplies that aren't should be readily available at your local homebrew store.
Coming soon is an article walking you through the process of making your own first batch, if you haven't already done so.

My first attempt

I would like to relate my first real attempt at making soda with everyone, and so decided to make this post before putting up my next review. Also, stay tuned for the question at the end.
I started off reading about Soda Siphons and different flavor concentrates, but at the time I didn't have the money to purchase the siphon(still haven't bought one). I wasn't going to let that get in the way of me making my own soda, and then it dawned on me-people have been making carbonated beverages for a long time before we had co2 canisters. So how did they do it? So I did a search, and very quickly discovered the mysterious secret-combining yeast, sugar and a closed container in a warm place. Really simple chemistry, and something I thought I should have learned at some point already.
So, I ran to my kitchen, looked for yeast and sugar. baking yeast was there, and we always had sugar. So now I needed a container I could seal- obvious answer! So I drank the rest of the 2 liter in the fridge and rinsed it thoroughly. I was rearing to go, and realized I had no idea what kind of soda I wanted to make.
I spent the rest of the night reading up on cola recipes, already knowing that cinnamon and vanilla was the "generic" cola flavor we associate with most store-brands. I knew we had those two ingredients, but I had to find out what the rest of the ingredients were. Most formulas call for lemon/lime/orange oil and some various spices. So, I collected what we had(I'll go into an ingredient list in a moment), and prepared myself for the task at hand.
I got out a stock pot, dumped a two liter bottle full of water into it(and added a little extra for boil off), and turned on the heat. I got it up to below boiling and turned the heat down, and proceeded to put in about a cup of sugar. Stirred in the sugar until it dissolved(creating an off-brown colored watery syrup), and sparingly added cinnamon and vanilla until I could taste them along with the sugar. I was just pinching and dropping, so I don't have any accurate measurements(nor would they be relevant by the end of this), but future recipes will include amounts so you can try it out yourself if you'd like.
After getting a satisfactory amount, I proceeded to add my other ingredients. A 1/4 tsp of nutmeg, a pinch of cardamom, a tablespoon of lemon juice and a teaspoon of lime. The lemon and lime juices provided me my citrus bouqet and slight acid bite(as I was working from my wife's spice rack instead of a grocery list specifically for my purposes), and overall the mixture turned out smelling and tasting quite flavorful.
So I grabbed a ladle and funnel and filled my two liter bottle with my concoction. I then took 1/4 teaspoon of the baker's yeast, dropped it in a coffee cup with a little bit of warm water in it, and let it proof with a paper towel covering it for about 5-10 minutes while the 2-liter cooled in the fridge. It's very important to allow your  pre-soda to cool a little before putting in the yeast, as letting it stay too hot will kill the yeast, but letting it cool too much won't allow the yeast to activate or continue to culture. 98-105 f is the recommended temperature.
My pre-soda was cooled and my yeast was ready. What could I do to make my cola stand out? I put a drop of green food coloring in the bottle to make it look fun and made sure it didn't alter the taste any(it didn't).
So I capped the bottle(having left about an inch of head space to allow a little gas buildup from the carbonation process), and set it on the counter.
Then, one of the longest waits of my life started. For three days I continued to return to my bottle(a few times a day) to squeeze and check for levels of carbonation. It started off very squishy and continued to get more firm. After the third day I decided it had gotten firm enough and placed the bottle(very, very carefully) into the refrigerator so it could cool and arrest the yeast.
It is of note to bring up the fact that yeast will create a kind of dirty-looking sediment at the bottom of your mixture, and it is very unappetizing to look at, so try to avoid doing that and focus on how delicious your soda is going to be.
After what felt like another eternity(which was about 2 days), I cracked open by bottle, received a very satisfying "pop" and fizz. I was super excited, until I caught a whiff of the odor that emanated from the bottle. It was something akin to risen bread before going into the oven to be cooked(as to be expected from the yeast), and a faint chemically smell. Uh-oh. I soldiered on.
I poured a small glass of my concoction to try it out. I took a sip. Very sweet, amazing carbonation. Those are the only good things I can say about my first batch of homemade soda. The mixture seemed to have taken on a bit of the plastic as part of it's flavor, but more pressing then that was the huge clumps of yeast floating around the glass...it wouldn't have been too bad, but it left a hairy feeling in your mouth. Bleh! My attempted cola ended up tasting like non-alcoholic, stale beer that someone had spilled sugar into. I really want to equate the taste to formaldehyde, but outside of passing puffs of it on a cigarette, I honestly had no reason to believe I actually knew what the stuff tasted or smelled like. In short, it was awful.
I then began to wonder if it was the added food coloring that gave it the awful chemical-like taste and smell. So I recreated the experiment without green food coloring and less yeast(to cut down on the floating hairy strings of yeast). It took slightly longer to carbonate, but produced an almost identical flavor with the same carbonation.
I decided to not get too discouraged and just shelved the cola idea for the time being and looked up other ideas and recipes. My next experiment, and first successful soda, will be the subject of an upcoming blog post.
What was your favorite off-brand or generic soda growing up?

Soda vs. Pop vs. Other

An eternal debate in these United States. Is it soda? Is it pop? Is it coke?
A little bit of background. I grew up in Toledo, Ohio- the majority of people around me referred to it as "pop", and on as a generic term for "carbonated beverage" I did as well. Why would I or anyone else call it anything differently? It's what we heard all the time, and had no reason to call it anything else.
I, for the most part, however, called every soda by name-if it was a Coca-Cola, it was Coke, if it was Pepsi, it was a Pepsi. If it was Root Beer, I called it either "root beer", or (as necessary), by the specific brand. More often then not, I called each and every individual root beer by the specific brand I was referring to at the moment. I never asked my parents to get me "pop" when they went to the store, and I always specifically said I wanted "Dad's", "A&W", "IBC", "Barq's" or "Mug"(which my 3 year old daughter affectionately calls "doggy soda"). I was a huge Root Beer fanatic, and still am. I'm a huge purist as well, as I don't consider Birch Beer to be a type of Root Beer at all-too distinct of a flavor for me.
Anyways, back on topic. I started off calling it "pop", but after watching thousands of hours of television I noticed that the majority of people on screen referred to it as "soft drink"(something that is too general a descriptor for my needs), and/or "soda". Of course, I knew that it was "soda pop", but since I had always known "pop", it seemed natural to call it that. Then, when I was about 15 or 16 I had a friend that only called it "soda", and I slowly just made the transition. Low and behold, 7 or 8 years after that I ended up in Bellingham, Wa-where it is almost evenly referred to as "soda" or "pop"(breaking slightly more towards the "soda" category. Long story short, I end up "fitting in" regardless of my company.
Because of the differences in location, however, my daughters like to tell me that "Grandma Melody has Pop, and we have soda...I want "pop" like at Grandma Melody's!"
I even have relatives in the south who literally call it "sodey pop", and that bugs me to no end. It sounds even more hickish when spoken by someone without a redneck accent, however, so there is always that I guess.
In my mind, it doesn't really matter what you refer to it as in the states-everyone is going to understand you one way or the other, and only the most persnickety are going to call you out on it. Go with your gut and call it what you will. Either way, you will enjoy it(or not) all the same.