related: since i have the carbonation-hurts thing, last week was the first time according to my memory that I have ever had a coke, because a girl at the lesbian meetup i was going to bought me a vodka coke and i was tipsy enough to fight the pain. coke tastes surprisingly good compared to its appearance and smell. also my teeth felt like they were dying when i finished it, and then i got a stomachache overall, 3/5 stars
That's partly why I'm a rotten hipster who buys the *~locally produced artisanal herbal soda~* when I'm not making my own like a fucking instagram food blogger The carbonation levels and sugar levels are so much lower, also every bloody fizzy drink in the uk now seems to have aspartame added thanks to that mugging *four letter censor* Jamie Oliver and his damned War on Sugar and the subsequent Sugar Tax. Thank you for nowt, you slavering goit.
The best type of commercially-sold soda is clearly tarhun, i.e. tarragon soda, and it's a travesty that the only brand of it I can find in my area is the worst brand (Chernogolovka). Even the worst brand of tarhun is the best, though. Spoiler: big tarhun I mean, look at that color. You feel like a cackling supervillain just holding a glass of it. And it's so refreshing! I think more commercial sodas should have the audacity to just be..."an extremely aromatic culinary herb, normally used in savory foods, but now it's sweet". (Also - maybe it's a Georgia thing, but I've had some tarhuns that were a lot more gently-carbonated than most sodas. More like champagne than commercial soda, I think? There should really be more sweet drinks in that "lightly carbonated" range. I don't really like the normal carbonation levels of soda, so I wonder if I should start making my own too...)
That looks like Waldmeister(Woodruff) syrup drinks! (Woodruff flavoured stuff seems to be a german thing)
Ohhh I want to try woodruff syrup now!! The Wikipedia page for tarhun did say that there were tarhuns that were flavored with woodruff...but I don't really know what woodruff tastes like on its own. I'm not sure if I've ever even had woodruff.
Is it spicy or sharp in any way? 'Cuz tarragon's also a pretty "green" flavor, but the more notable thing about it is that it's Sharp. So, in terms of flavor, the closest common soda I can compare to tarhun is ginger ale... But there are a lot of flavors I consider "green" that are completely mellow, and not sharp or spicy at all.
It's... mh fuck I dunno how i can describe it right? It's not really comparable to anything else to me it's kind of.... heavy, and I almost feel it more in my sinuses than i taste it but it's not sharp or spicy really just... it tastes like feeling so dizzy you need to lay down but in a nice way. (here we see why I should never be made to describe sensory input)
not spicey at all! i wouldn't even rate it as sharp. it's.... i wanna say 'tastes like drying hay in the sun smells' but that's not quite it? close tho. Greener.
Soda syrups: I do have a water carbonating machine at home, but carbonated spring water in bottles also works for lazy sodas. I usually wing it with a 1:1 or 1:2 sugar/sweetener-to-water as a simple syrup, add fruit and herbs, zest, flower petals etc and just simmer crap out of it. The milder the flavour in the original ingredients, the longer the syrup takes to infuse - rose, violet, Linden blossoms and elderflowers all gave a significantly longer infuse time than, say, mint or fresh basil. Because I am super lazy and low on spoons, I whipped up a single serve of quick syrup for demo purposes: This took about 7 minutes - 6 frozen strawberries, contents of one fennel teabag, 2 tbsp water, 1 tbsp erythritol granulated sweetener - bunged in a saucepan and occasionally muddled with a fork. I strained it straight into the glass with a tea strainer, added a slice each of frozen lime and lemon. It's fairly mild - fresh strawberries would have been better - but it has a refreshing fruity-anise tang. Once you've got simple syrup down the world is your oyster, in honesty. Raspberry and Linden is a very good combo. You can even make a decent faux-grenadine with mixed berries and just a touch of vanilla paste.
Ooooh, that's something I'd really like to find the spoons to do some day. I've made vanilla cream soda before, also tea syrup which was oddly great, but never anything with actual combinations of stuff.
Thank. So I simmer the stuff into a syrup and then add the water? Like how freshwater smells but sweet.
Yep, basically. Sugar + water + flavouring, simmer until desired thickness and intensity, add dilution agent for finished drink - water, sparkling water, wine, etc.
what cool soft drinks should i try when i'm in germany in august? or foods, but considering my dumb insides drinks might be easier to recommend
bionade is a very cool hipster-y drink tho it's not 100% celiac friendly since it's essentially produced sort of like an alcohol free beer classic flavor is elderberry, but there's others if you don't like that
on a similar thread, my uncle says he'll bring me something from england with him this august. what's cheap and transportable and different in the uk than canada? chocolates or sodas or anything uncategorizable?
I can't speak to Canada but a thing I enjoyed in England a couple weeks ago when I was there was humbugs: candies that are mint on the outside and caramel on the inside. Also milk flavored candy isn't something the US doesn't get but it was weird but good when I tried it. I also loved black pudding but because that's an animal product it'll probably a lot harder to import.
