Homemade Soda: 200 Recipes for Making & Using Fruit Sodas & Fizzy Juices, Sparkling Waters, Root Beers & Cola Brews, Herbal & Healing Waters, ... & Floats, & Other Carbonated Concoctions [Paperback]

Andrew Schloss (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2011

Making your own soda is easy and inexpensive. Best of all, you control the sweetness level and ingredients, so you can create a drink that’s exactly what you want. Using a few simple techniques, anyone can make a spectacular variety of beverages. Try Pomegranate Punch, Chai Fizz, Fruity Root Beer, Sparkling Orange Creamsicle, Honey Cardamom Fizzy Water, Sparkling Espresso Jolt, Cold Fudge Soda, Lightly Salty Caramel Seltzer, Sangria Shrub, Maraschino Ginger Ale, Malted Molasses Switchel, or Berry Vinegar Cordial. Some recipes show you how to re-create the flavors of favorite commercial soft drinks, and others show you how to use homemade soda in decadent desserts and adult cocktails. The delicious possibilities are endless!

Editorial Reviews

Review

"As the seasoned author of 15 successful cookbooks (e.g., Art of the Slow Cooker), Schloss does not disappoint here. This collection contains 200 recipes for carbonated beverages, ranging from the expected (Rooty Toot Root Beer) to the gourmet (Spiced Balsamic Fig Sparkler). In addition to the soda recipes, Scholss devotes two chapters to food cooked with the drinks, covering both savory main dishes and sweet desserts. The short descriptions that accompany each recipe are carefully written to communicate taste and mouthfeel with vivid accuracy. Whenever possible, drink recipes have a range of options including carbonating with a siphon or even mixing into a cocktail. VERDICT The retro fonts and stylish layout make this book a modern answer to Stephen Cresswell’s 1998 Homemade Root Beer, Soda, & Pop. Accessible to novice soda makers and appealing to experts, this is an exceptional collection and a comprehensive resource for both kitchen and bar." (Library Journal)

About the Author

Andrew Schloss wants everyone to cook more, and he has devoted his career to easing the way. Schloss has written countless articles on food as well as 15 cookbooks, including Homemade Soda, The Science of Good Food (with David Joachim), which won an IACP Cookbook Award and was a James Beard award finalist, and Mastering the Grill (also with David Joachim), which was a New York Times bestseller.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC (June 1, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1603427961
• ISBN-13: 978-1603427968
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 0.8 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,403 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #35 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Drinks & Beverages > Juice
  • #43 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Drinks & Beverages > Spirits

More About the Author

Andy Schloss wants everyone to cook more, and he has devoted his career to ease the way. As a well known teacher, food writer, cookbook author, and food product developer, he concentrates his decades of experience to streamline the tedious and illuminate the intricacies that make cooking good food a pleasure and a passion. Andy has authored 17 cookbooks and countless food articles. His first book Fifty Ways to Cook Most Everything was a Book of the Month Club Main Selection. The Science of Good Food (co-authored with David Joachim) won an IACP Cookbook Award, and their book, Mastering the Grill was a NYT bestseller. His latest books Fire It Up, a follow-up grilling guide written with Joachim and Homemade Soda are being published in the Spring of 2011. Schloss is the culinary creator of Cookulus: Ultimate Recipe apps, and the developer and manufacturer of the popular line of seasoning blends, Chef Salt. He is a past president of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, and lives outside Philadelphia with his wife, Karen, and their incredibly well-fed dog.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 51 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Tons of inventive and delicious recipes! June 21, 2011

By CuteEverythingcom TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

At the heart of Homemade Soda is the 200 recipes for making (and using) an incredible variety of sodas and sparkling drinks of all kinds. The recipes are both startlingly inventive -- and refreshingly delicious. The book starts off with a fairly in-depth description of different ways that you can make these sodas at home, and each recipe includes the appropriate variants, along with an alcoholic "mixology" section for each recipe. However, the quickest and easiest way will surely be to use the SodaStream, which works excellent for making any of these specialities.

In the recipe section, the first chapter is Sparkling Waters, which includes seltzers with flavors like caramel, goji, honey, cardamom, honeydew, mint, and chile, as well as vitamin-infused sparkling waters. The second chapter is all about fruit sodas. The recipes often bring different flavors together, like orange-honey-ginger ale, or strawberry pomegranate. Next is Root Beers & Cola Brews, which includes a variety of root beers, as well as what is thought to be the original Coca-cola recipe, in addition to their own cola recipes, ginger ales, and other naturally fermented drinks, like kambucha.

Chapter four is Herbal Sodas & Healing Waters, which includes superfood ingredients like acai, licorice, basil, and lavender. After that is Tizzy Juices, which includes fruit juices of all types -- with a twist -- like fermented apple, vanilla pear, pomegranate cranberry, cucumber mint, and a recipe with papaya, orange, lime and vanilla. There is nothing like a fresh fruit soda on a hot summer's day... so refreshing! Sparkling Teas, Coffees & Chocolates offers many more recipes that you won't find in stores, like coconut green tea, hazelnut coffee, and cocoa chile. At the start of the chapter, Cream Sodas, Egg Creams & Floats (as for all the chapters), there is a brief history, which in this case explains why there is generally no cream or eggs in these. Yet the book offers some with milk, and even a sparkling egg nog,alongside recipes for strawberry, almond-honey and banana cream sodas, dulce de leche, and mango lassi effervescent drinks as well.

Then there is a chapter devoted to exotic Shrubs, Switchels & Other Vinegar Drinks, with recipes like watermelon mint cordial. Given how healthy apple cider vinegar is said to be, we will definitely be trying some of these, like the sweet and sour apple cider. The last two chapters of Homemade Soda involve cooking with sodas, and includes delicious recipes like cola chili and root beer baked beans, as well as desserts, like lemon-lime cheesecake and ginger ale gingerbread. The 336-page book finishes up with an excellent index and recommended places to get obscure ingredients.

Homemade Soda is a perfect accompaniment to the SodaStream machine, to assist you in making all kinds of delicious beverages at home!

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Delicious and fun! June 20, 2011

By C. Daleo

Format:Paperback

After getting a SodaStream as a gift, I started buying their syrups and didn't love them. I do love it for seltzer, but crave different soda flavors. Along comes "Homemade Soda" and my quest is over! There are so many recipes that I will never be able to make them all (200, in fact)...soda syrups, teas, juices, flavored waters, floats, health drinks and more! And for those of you who don't have a soda machine or a siphon, most recipes for the syrups can just be mixed with bottled seltzer!

The book itself is in full color with easy to read fonts. Not just recipes though... there is information on the history of soda, soda machines, siphons and brewing.

I will definitely be using this book a lot!

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Better Than Coke (or Pepsi) May 28, 2011

By E. A. Montgomery TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

You know how some things once known cannot be unknown? That's how I feel about the ingredients for Cola and various Root Beers. Thinking about drinking Kitchen Bouquet Browning Liquid makes my rejection of commercial soda all the more sincere. I'm a changed woman. (Ok, on vacation I am totally going to relapse. Let's be honest.) Homemade Soda sometimes gave me that feeling you get watching an evening news report on food standards for your child's chicken nugget versus Fido's pet food. Sure, it's called 7-Root Beer, but actual roots? Carrots and parsnips and licorice? I think I'll go back to Grapefruit Soda, it tastes like a Fresca without the artificial kick in the finish. Strawberry Pineapple Soda is ridiculously easy to make the syrup for. Homemade Soda has the right combination of accessible and outrageous. I like a cookbook that blends things I can make tonight with things I'll never make but tell myself I'll try next weekend, or maybe the one after but certainly by the end of the month...

Graphically, the book is beautiful. The font and layout has a strong early seventies feel which is an emotional heyday for me and soda. Schloss gives clear and careful instructions for a variety of methods, from a simple mix with seltzer to using a siphon or fermenting your own concoctions. I think this is the next foodie craze - can you imagine throwing a party where all the mixers or soft drinks were made in your own kitchen? Go ahead and cater the main course, everyone will still talk about your mad kitchen skills the next day. Especially if you mix up a batch of Blazing Inferno Chile water. Homemade Soda is comprehensive, fun and beautifully designed. I'm going to be using it as a gift book this year, as I continue my crusade against waste by urging everyone to give up commercially bottled beverages. The only thing missing from Homemade Soda is the ratio for using Sodastream Fountain Jet Soda Maker Starter Kit machines. I was able to figure out most of them, but it would have been a nice addition.