I love your soda videos. I bought a 5lb Co2 tank months ago and have been making my own sodas on a daily basis. I'm not trying to crack the codes of any popular brands, but I really enjoy learning how you mix and dilute the oils and make the syrups. I bought 2 gallons of generic mountain dew syrup when I got my tank, and just this week I'll be using the last of it. I use it primarily for a base and sugar/caffeine source, but I add several other flavorings on top of it when I mix a soda. I drink a 1:4 sugar - sucralose drink as I am careful with my sugar content but don't like the taste of pure splenda drinks. Some of the Mio syrups are pretty good so I just usually buy those and mix them depending on the mood. I recently discovered a brand called Skinny Syrups, which are mostly meant for cocktails and are sucralose based but are great in soda. I also always have fresh lemons and limes for acidity and flavor. Panax Ginseng extract adds a nice kick of energy, if you've never used it I would definitely try it. I've heard american ginseng has the opposite effect and is more calming, but have yet to buy some. Would be nice for an end of night drink though. After watching your videos I'm definitely going in a whole new direction. A few questions first...where do you get everclear? I was going to make some thc tincture years ago and went to like four state stores and nobody had it, I ended up using vodka and wasn't happy with the results. Also, can you recommend any places online to buy oils and extracts? What's the brass measuring thing you use? I'm probably going to start small with my oil/essence collection...so if you were a citrusy mountain dew person, and had to choose 3 of your favorites, which would you choose? Also any other advice would be welcome! Cheers

@VintageAmericanCocktails

Ай бұрын

Thats awesome! I just need to get a large co2 tank to make my own soda water. I go through enough of it now and my go-to drink at night is a highball. I got the stuff to make Mountain Dew and plan on making a video of that next. So it depends on where you live and the liquor laws for each state. some states don't allow 95% ABV alcohol to be sold at all. I found this link for states where Everclear is legal. culinarysolvent.com/blogs/ethanol101/where-is-everclear-illegal I'm surprised to see Nevada on this list because I live in Nevada and can get it here. seems there are also some loopholes to selling it for non-beverage purposes, but sounds like you really put the effort in already with no luck. See if there is a way to get in your state for non beverage purposes? yeah unfortunately 40% vodka is no able to dissolve anywhere near the same amount of oil as 95%. 95% ABV can dissolve around 5% oil but 40% ABV can only hold around 0.5% oil and 75% ABV can hold around 3% oil. For the ratios to work it needs to be 95% and if you can only get 75% then increase the flavoring by 1.5x. 40% ABV would require like 2 tsp. The little gold measuring cup is called a jigger. they make a few different types but the main ones are american, japanese and bell. the one i use is a bell, japanese style ones are really good, and the american style jiggers stink. the purpose of them is to measure out oz. mine is a 1 and 2 oz but 1.5 and 0.5 is popular one. also 1.5 and 2 is common. cocktails are measured out in oz so its the main measuring tool for mixing cocktails. like i said i will make a mountain dew video soon but mountain dew is sprite flavor with caffeine and frozen concentrated orange juice. As far as the oils go here is a copy pasted response i gave to someone on my website when they asked who to buy from. "Ah, a very good and simple question with a not very clear or simple answer. The problem is there is no one perfect supplier. There are many good essential oil suppliers but there are some crumby ones, and there are some cheap ones and some expensive ones. Fortunately, if an oil says it’s steam distilled or cold pressed and undiluted, then it probably is and I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Most oils are not too expensive so a bottle of cold-pressed lemon oil for 15-25 bucks is fine and most likely very high quality. Some though are very expensive. A 10 ml bottle of neroli or rose will never be less than 100 - 150 dollars. If you find a bottle of Neroli for less than that, it is for sure cut with other oils, but it will most likely say it is cut with other oils. In addition, there is no regulatory body overseeing essential oils. There are groups, such as the Essential Oil University, that will perform GCMS testing on oils and certify an oil’s level of purity, but submitting to groups like this is voluntary. The 2 main things to look for when buying oils are: 1). Only use cold press or steam-distilled oils. 2). Only use 100% pure oils. Never use oils cut with other oils. If you want to cover yourself find manufacturers that provide their GCMS oil test results. companies like Eden’s Garden and others do this, but those oils tend to come at a premium. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Lime or lemon oil for 15- 20 bucks is reasonable, but rose oil for 15-20 bucks? Impossible. You can find these oils online and 10-30 ml of pure essential oil will last you a long, long time. 10ml of an oil can fully flavor almost 2000 drinks. That’s over 5 years if you make 1 soda a day. Just to put the cost into perspective. By making your own syrups and sodas think of all the preservatives you are avoiding, but if buying oil stuff is a bit worrisome you can also make a homemade extract with the actual spices and peels. The essence recipes are 5% solutions but a standard extract will be 0.5%. just 10x each flavor for an extract replacing an essence. Instead of 0.5ml, use 5ml. just soak some nutmeg or lemon peels in vodka, add a teaspoon of each infusion, and call it a day. I hope this helps. Again it’s not a simple question to answer."

Ok yummm. Making this for my brother who is OBSESSED with sprite!

@VintageAmericanCocktails

3 ай бұрын

Nice! I hope he likes it.

@maxinemcelroy8902

2 ай бұрын

I'm a 71 year old widow and I'm addicted to sprite too 😋

🙏

Welcome Home

Okay, where did you get this chemical magical knowledge? Im curious

@VintageAmericanCocktails

2 ай бұрын

I read a few old pharmaceutical soda making books on google books that were from the 1800s. I didn’t read them cover to cover obviously but I wrote down many of their recipes and tried to find the patterns. Similar to how there were cocktail books back then they also had soda recipe books. The pharmaceutical books have good explanations and techniques for making syrups and flavor solutions, but the normal soda books have some fun recipes. The pharmacist being chemist knew exactly what they were doing and had the best methods. The method I feel I make flavors in mostly what I’m going to call the Pemberton method. I’m sure other did it before him and it seems just to be the way pharmacist were taught back then to medicines. (Most medicines back then were liquid and alcohol was one of the best ways to extract oils so therefore most liquid medicine solutions were 5%. For higher concentrations they would use scarier liquids like acetone and such, but that gave people stomach cancer over a long enough period of time.) so yeah I try making 5% flavor solutions like they did and after a bit of math and experiment I found 1.5 ml of a 5% solution was perfect for flavoring 1kg of syrup. It produced sodas that tasted exactly the same flavor as store bought. And while back then most of the pharmaceutical guides gave recipes for 50+ gallons of syrup, if you scale them down they work out to around 1.5ml flavor to 1 kg simple syrup. Yeah it was pretty, cool I found in some medical journal.(I saved the link to it somewhere) and article about how the struggle to create grape soda lead to the invention of vacuum chamber evaporation. It mentioned nestle chocolate to and how now because of grape soda they food industry was cold evaporating all sorts of stuff. Evaporated milks, just concentrates. It said how Heinz began using it to make ketchup that was so much better than any ketchup anyone had had before. So yeah, I go on to google books, type in some soda related keywords, set the date range for 1800-1920, poke around for a bit and then experiment at home.

What about mtn dew throwback or real sugar

@VintageAmericanCocktails

2 ай бұрын

I absolutely want to make mountains dew. I got a few on the list but that’s on it too.

Ethanol is alcohol but sprite is non alcoholic. Could you suggest with non alcoholic substance?

@VintageAmericanCocktails

2 ай бұрын

They are indeed labeled as non-alcoholic because they have so little alcohol in them that you could never get inebriated from them. Most flavored sodas have added alcohol to bring them to an alcohol by volume of 0.00005%. That's super small. Non-alcoholic beers tend to be around 0.05% - 0.1% ABV, and around 1% ABV, drinks start to get labeled as low ABV. Even store-bought juice is usually around 0.1% from natural fermentation. Soda companies don't publicly list ethanol as an ingredient because they can hide it in the "Natural Flavors" label to protect their recipe. One would have to drink around 100,000 sprites to equal the alcohol content of 1 beer. As far as alcohol substitutes, Ethanol is the most effective tool to emulsify oil in water but you could try dissolving the oil in propylene glycol or blending it with gum arabic. Those will work, but not anywhere near as well as ethanol. With those, the oil is more likely to condense and float to the top.

It’s crazy to learn that sprite has alcohol in it. Is there a way to make this without alcohol?

@VintageAmericanCocktails

3 ай бұрын

Yeah they hide it in the “natural flavors” part. Each drink has an ABV of 0.00005%. It’s so small it’s considered non-alcoholic. You could try dissolving it in propylene glycol or blending it with powdered gum arabic but ethanol is the most effective. The oil may come out of solution a little with the other two and require remixing the syrup before use, but the alcohol works very well and the oils will stay in solution for a very long time.

Thank you for not using cutesy ukulele music

@VintageAmericanCocktails

3 ай бұрын

lol of course. I’m more of an ambient and piano fan. music is really hard to find especially for a longer video. I struggle with the music more than I do making the video. I experimented with a music-less video recently and people were not fans and I didn’t really like it either.

@doombga

Ай бұрын

@@VintageAmericanCocktails Have you checked out AI music tools? I know it sounds cringe, but I was playing with Soundful and was blown away at the royalty free clips it generates. As long as you can describe it in a prompt it'll churn out a few minutes worth or ambient background music and nobody will be the wiser.

anyone... watching this while drinking Sprite ?

@theoskylab

2 ай бұрын

yes with a shot of rum🙃

People are seeing you pour two 1oz jiggers of 95% alcohol and thinking "wow I can't drive if I drink this homemade Sprite, Coke, or Pepsi" Not figuring the delusion of less than 1ml each of alcohol essence to over 400ml of syrup, then only 40ml (10%) of that syrup to 300ml of soda water There's probably more alcohol when I add pure vanilla extract into my store bought coke?

@VintageAmericanCocktails

Ай бұрын

Exactly! I get that comment quite often. “What!? And it’s alcoholic too?” Each drink is only 0.05% ABV and anything under 0.1 is considered nonalcoholic. Store bought juice has more alcohol from natural fermentation. Thanks for seeing that. I imagine it’s for religious reasons sometimes, but even the big manufacturers use it. They just don’t have to list it because it can be hidden in the natural flavors label.

@doombga

Ай бұрын

If you thought that was bad, read the comments in the coca cola video lol.