busybee Food Coffee Talk

I’ve been experimenting with coffee-based sodas again. Unlike last time, I decided to experiment based on the espresso kola idea.

What I’ve found to work really nicely is to take 1 liter of cola (such as Sodastream’s generic cola flavor, which has a nice blend of sucrose and ace K/sucralose), four pumps of vanilla syrup (such as Torani), and a purposefully-overextracted shot of espresso.

For my most recent batch I did an ultra-long shot, with 18 grams in, 60 grams out, specifically to get as many of the bitter oils out as I could, which helped the coffee flavor really stand up against the sweetness of the cola.

One thing to keep in mind when doing this is that espresso is full of surfactants and particulate, which both conspire to make the soda very “angry,” so caution is advised, especially when opening the bottle for the first time. It’s a good idea to let it rest in the refrigerator for a few hours and then open it carefully in the sink.

An even better idea is to use a much larger bottle than the volume of soda you’re making, so for example a half-liter of cola, and two pumps of vanilla syrup. I’d still do an 18:60 espresso shot with that, though, for even more delicious coffee flavor.

Anyway, now to mop my floor…