Simple syrup is a mixture of equal parts water and sugar that many home cooks and bakers are familiar with. It’s a versatile syrup that can be used for sweetening all kinds of things in the kitchen, but it is especially useful when it comes to sweetening drinks. The only problem with simple syrup is that it is very plain, so the drinks that you add it to – take lemonade, for instance – need to be very flavorful before any syrup is added for them to taste good. Learning to make flavored syrups can greatly improve the range of recipes that you can make and take your drink-making skills to a whole new level. Make Your Own Soda: Syrup Recipes for All-Natural Pop, Floats, Cocktails, and More features recipes for more than 70 different syrup flavors, all made with completely natural ingredients and delivering a lot more flavor than you could ever find in simple syrup alone.
The syrup recipes are made with no corn syrup, no artificial ingredients and no artificial colors. Instead, they’re made with real sugar and flavored with ingredients that include berries, coffee, hibiscus, herbs and spices – just to name a few. The book emphasizes using in season fruits and produce to get the best flavor in your syrups and provides a guide to help you do your shopping, as well as tips for preparing the fruits and getting the most out of your ingredients. The syrups have naturally bright colors and flavors and simply mixing them with some soda water will give you artisianal, small batch sodas that you and your friends will love.
These syrups don’t need to be used with any special gadgets and the book gives you all the information you need to make your own drinks from scratch. If you do already have something like a SodaStream, however, you are likely to get a lot of use from the syrups in this book because they are so much better than the premade soda syrups that are already out there. In addition to sodas, there are recipes for soda fountain favorites, such as floats and egg creams, as well as a variety of cocktails that you can make with them. The photos alone provide plenty of inspiration, but the syrups are so versatile that you are sure to come up with your own ideas after you’ve made a batch or two.
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