My friend Nelle has started making her own Cola Syrup and yesterday she invited me over to watch her in action and sample the brew. What a revelation homemade Cola is. It has a light, floral flavor and you can taste vanilla, lavender flowers and the citrus zest but it is distinctly, and most definitely, a Cola.
Originally developed by a morphine-addicted Civil War veteran who was trying to cure his addiction, the Coke recipe was one of the most intensely guarded secrets in the history of business. It is never written down and only two people in the world (at a time) know how to make the syrup! And they don’t fly together in case the plane crashes. But this past February some producers at This American Life came across a newspaper article from 1979 with a photograph of John Pemberton’s (the Civil War veteran-inventor) recipe. You can see the recipe and read more about it here .
I have to say the recipe she uses read like tricky chemistry to me until I saw Nelle in action. Making your own Cola actually is (once you have the ingredients) easy and fast and the end result is amazing, unlike any Cola you have had before. It makes a wondrous Rum and Coke and occurred to me, as I sipped away last night, how much fun it would be to serve them at a summer-time dinner party.
Nelle’s Cola Syrup
- 2 cups water
- 3 teaspoons orange zest (about 2 oranges)
- 3 teaspoons lime zest (about 2 limes)
- 2 teaspoons lemon zest (about 1 lemon)
- 2 pinches ground cinnamon
- 2 pinches ground nutmeg
- 1 point of Star Anise (crushed)
- 1/2 teaspoon dried lavender flowers
- about a 1 inch x 1 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced
- 1 1/2 inch piece of vanilla bean — seeds scraped out and bean
- 1/4 teaspoon citric acid (most health food stores sell it)
- 1/2 teaspoon caramel coloring (optional)
- 15 ounces superfine cane sugar
- 3 level, packed teaspoons of light brown cane sugar
1 – Clean and sterilize a glass jar that can hold 24 ounces. You want to make sure you store the syrup in glass — plastic imparts an odd taste.
2 – Simmer the above ingredients minus the sugar for 20 minutes, covered.
Mixed Sugars with Caramel Coloring
3 – Mix the sugars together in a bowl. If you want to use caramel coloring, sprinkle the caramel coloring over the sugars.
4 – Strain the liquid (which looks kind of gross at this point and doesn’t yet smell like Cola) through a cheese cloth into the bowl that contains the sugars. Gently stir to dissolve the sugars. Let cool and store in your glass jar.
Syrup Making Notes:
- If you don’t use caramel coloring the syrup turns out a kind of watery, tan color. It’s purely an aesthetic thing, doesn’t effect taste one way or the other.
- You can make superfine sugar (called caster sugar in the U.K.) by running regular, cane sugar through a food processor for about 30 seconds.
- The ratio of syrup to seltzer is 1:4.
- All of the ingredients total about $6.50.
- You can find caramel coloring (which is used to make pumpernickel bread that dark brown) here, and citric acid here.
…There’s no caffeine in this recipe…
I made some this morning, and it’s INCREDIBLE. Thank you so much for posting about it.
Oh, I am so glad you made it and enjoyed it! Isn’t it amazing?
best, S
Yeah, this is a great recipe, thanks for sharing. I’ve made a few homemade colas and this one is my favorite. I just wish I could find non-gmo caramel coloring though.
try using a few tsp of cocoa powder
Made some as a Christmas gift and added a bit of Kola extract (can buy on Amazon) which is supposedly what the original Coca Cola recipe was based on – it adds another layer of flavor but this syrup is also just fine without, I must say! Wonderful recipe – thanks for sharing!
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This looks yummy! How long does the syrup last in the fridge?
Hello! Indefinitely, probably but certainly a month or two in the fridge. There’s nothing in it that would go off.
Do you happen to know if any of these ingredients impart caffeine to the cola?
Hi, no none of these ingredients add caffeine. In fact if you want the cola to be caffeinated you have to buy caffeine and add it. This recipe makes an caffeine-free cola. Enjoy!
Does the syrup to water ratio stay the same if I use yeast instead of force carbonating?
Hi, I am not sure about yeast carbonating. I’m so sorry.
I fermented it and followed the recipe exactly- it turned out great but I would recommend keeping a dropper of liquid stevia on hand as sometimes with fermenting the sugars can be eaten a little bit more and you lose some of the sweetness. With the stevia it adds some back without adding bulk.
does anyone know if this could be done with stevia instead of sugar? (i’m diabetic)
I think that substituting out the sugar would mean you would need to radically change the proportions of the other ingredients. Also, chemically the sugar plays an enormous part in developing the syrup. I will ask around if anyone has a sugar-free/stevia recipe. But I wouldn’t substitute Stevia and not change the other flavors…
I have no idea if this is any good but might be interesting as guide for quantity, substitions:
Diet Coke Syrup (with Stevia)
What I’ve found is that adding just stevia doesn’t work as well as mixing stevia and xylitol then either a little honey or mollasses. Cook it with xylitol using roughly half the sugar measurement or less. The nice thing about stevia is that you can add it to taste after its done. I’ve made this recipe 20 times and experimented half those times. Not once has a batch turned out bad.
Just came across this. My husband is going to freak out. I’ve been making some homemade soda recipes with our soda stream and a homemade cola might put it over the top for him.
I just finished making this syrup and trying a glass of soda. I’ve always enjoyed my lemonade on the tart side rather than the sweet side and I thought this turned out to be WAY too sugary for my taste. I have all of the ingredients now, so I’m sure I will keep at it when this batch is gone. For now I will just go with a ratio of 1 part syrup to 5 parts water. The next batch I will back off on the sugar. I may try 10 ounces at first and bump it up as I see fit. At any rate, than you for taking the time to put this recipe together.
Thanks so much! I made it and it was delicious. I’m worried that I didn’t add things in the right ratio, because it ended up tasting more like cream soda than cola. Any ideas?
From Nelle:
Hiya,
It’s the vanilla that contributes that cream soda taste and you might be using particularly strong vanilla. Cut back on the vanilla and the other aromatics in the syrup should come to the fore.