Hello folks,
I have here a bunch of recipes for sweetened drinks that are affectionately called:
Red, Blue and Other Drink Concoctions
What are these? Replicas of a variety of sugary beverages made with Stevia (a plant-based, non-toxic/carcinogenic, sweetener) and a batch of other flavour additives. This has the advantage of being sugar-free, non-sticky in the event of a spill and mostly cheaper too.
BLUE
1 gallon water
1/4 tsp Stevia*
1/4 tsp Tropical Punch Flavour***
1 tsp Citric Acid**
Blue food colouring
RED
6 Rosehip & Hibiscus teabags steeped for 2-3 hours. (most any fruity tea will work to give it flavour and colour)
1/4 tsp Stevia*
3/4 tsp Lemon Extract (This one is a bit tricky because the different lemon extracts come in wildly different strengths. Using a dropper and adjusting to taste is a good idea.)
1 tsp Citric Acid**
Enough water to bring it up to 1 gallon
I also make home-made sugar free root beer and other beverages. Of those, root beer is the easiest to make and tastes most like the original beverage. My teen takes these to his highschool parties and nobody can tell the difference. :o)
ROOT BEER
1 2L bottle of carbonated water
1/4 tsp Stevia*
1 tsp Royal Root Beer Extract (Available at most microbreweries. $7 = 4oz = lots of root beer. This is the stuff used to make actual root beer too, hence the flavour match.)
SODA (Peach or otherwise...)
1 2L bottle of carbonated water
1/8 tsp Peach Flavour***
1/4 tsp Stevia*
Food Colouring - 2 drops red, 1 drop yellow. Or whatever you want to colour it - feel free to mess with your kids'/guests' expectations! ;o)
3/4 tsp Citric Acid**
!!CAUTION!!
Adding the Citric Acid will cause it to react strongly with the cabonated water, fizzing up and doing its best to explode out of the bottle. To avoid this, add the Citric Acid last and be ready to clamp one hand down on the bottle HARD as soon as you do. Hold it for about two minutes then screw the lid on and stick it in the fridge to chill for an hour or two.
!!CAUTION!!
LEMONADE (or other non-fizzy beverage)
1 empty 2L bottle
1/4 tsp Stevia*
9-10 drops Lemon Extract (This one is a bit tricky because the different lemon extracts come in wildly different strengths. Using a dropper and adjusting to taste is a good idea.)
1 tsp Citric Acid**
Food Colouring
diHydrogen monOxide
FLAVOURED YOGOURT
1 500g Tub of Liberte Goat Yogourt ($5 - available in fat-free, 5% or 10%. I recommend the 10%)
1/4 tsp Stevia*
1/4 tsp Flavour*** (Recommended flavours are: Butterscotch, Peach, and Raspberry. Also, LorAnn Flavour Fountain flavours = Banana Coconut (+ Rum) = Pina Coladas! :oD)
The SODA, LEMONADE, and FLAVOURED YOGOURT recipes can be used to make anything you can find a flavour for, up to and including Butterscotch Soda (not advised...) so have fun with it. The trick is to find the right quantity of flavouring to make it strong enough without going overboard. Also, some of the fruity stuff requires a bit of messing with oil extracts and emulsions so that can get tricky.
Good luck!
*New Roots brand = awesome. $15-18 for a 30g tub. VERY concentrated stuff. 1/2 tsp = 1 cup of sugar.
**Available from microbreweries - they should also have Tartaric Acid and one other kind, they're all vaguely interchangeable and cost about $10/kilo
***LorAnn Oils - works well because it isn't sweetened. $4-5 for a bottle