Orange Soda – Old Fashioned Recipe

Orange Soda
Advertisements

Orange Soda

0 from 0 votes Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: American
Servings

1

servings
Calories

45

kcal
Total time

3

minutes

Make an old-fashioned orange soda.

Ingredients

  • 1.5 oz 1.5 Orange Syrup

  • 8 oz 8 Soda Water

Directions

  • Technique: Saxe Soda Shake
  • Add syrup to a cocktail shaker.
  • Add one medium or two small ice cubes to the cocktail shaker and shake until the ice fully melts.
  • Pour the chilled and aerated syrup into a collins glass without a strainer.
  • Slowly pour the soda water down into the top of the drink. This will build both body and a foam head.

Featured Video

Check out our latest video

What Does An Old Fashion Orange Soda Taste Like?

An old fashion orange soda made with fresh orange syrup taste so much better than any other orange soda you can buy at a store. The reduced orange juice and orange extract syrup flavors are complex and deep without overwhelming. If you are curious about how to make fresh orange syrup check out my orange syrup recipe.

How To Get A Nice Foam On Your Sodas.

It was typical for high-end sodas in the late 1800s to have a nice foam on top. Similar to high-end molecular gastronomy restaurants today, a nice soda fountain would ensure that some drinks had an air or foam on top as you sipped your drink. The foam provides both a creamy texture and olfactory stimulation. These were called foaming agents, and in the 1800s, soap bark or other extracts were added to syrups to provide foam when shaken and mixed with soda water. A popular one today in the United States is propylene glycol, and while it is “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) in the US, it is banned for consumption in the EU. Another modern alternative, and the one I use, is adding lecithin to my syrups. Lecithin is flavor neutral, a natural emulsifier that provides a nice foam, and is often taken as a health supplement. It is also the foaming agent many high-end restaurants use to make foams for food. So I’ll add 0.5% of the total syrups weight of lecithin powder to my syrups as a foaming agent. Check out my Cream of Coconut recipe for exactly how that is done.

If you want to learn more about this topic and make your drinks better, check out De Forest Saxe’s 1894 book “Saxe’s New Guide Hints to Soda Water Dispensers.

Recipe Resources

Related Articles

Advertisements
Advertisements

Discover More Classics

Advertisements

Orange Cream Soda – Old Fashioned Recipe

Orange Cream Soda
Advertisements

Orange Cream Soda

0 from 0 votes Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: American
Servings

1

servings
Calories

60

kcal
Total time

3

minutes

Make an old-fashioned orange cream soda.

Ingredients

  • 1.5 oz 1.5 Orange Syrup

  • 1/2 oz 1/2 Vanilla Cream Syrup

  • 8 oz 8 Soda Water

Directions

  • Technique: Saxe Soda Shake
  • Combine syrup and vanilla cream syrup in a cocktail shaker.
  • Add one medium or two small ice cubes to the cocktail shaker and shake until the ice fully melts.
  • Pour the chilled and aerated syrup into a collins glass without a strainer.
  • Slowly pour the soda water down into the top of the drink. This will build both body and a foam head.

Featured Video

What Does An Old Fashion Orange Cream Soda Taste Like?

An orange cream soda made with orange syrup and old fashion vanilla cream syrup is a fantastic drink. It’s light and sweet without being as overwhelming as today’s bottled orange cream sodas. Most modern sodas are hyper-sugary with synthetic flavors, but this orange cream soda made with real orange and cream syrup is complex, rich, and refreshing.

How To Make Vanilla Cream Syrup

A nice vanilla cream syrup is:

  • 2 cups heavy cream
  • 2 cups whole milk
  • 2 cups granulated sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

How To Get A Nice Foam On Your Sodas.

It was typical for high-end sodas in the late 1800s to have a nice foam on top. Similar to high-end molecular gastronomy restaurants today, a nice soda fountain would ensure that some drinks had an air or foam on top as you sipped your drink. The foam provides both a creamy texture and olfactory stimulation. These were called foaming agents, and in the 1800s, soap bark or other extracts were added to syrups to provide foam when shaken and mixed with soda water. A popular one today in the United States is propylene glycol, and while it is “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) in the US, it is banned for consumption in the EU. Another modern alternative, and the one I use, is adding lecithin to my syrups. Lecithin is flavor neutral, a natural emulsifier that provides a nice foam, and is often taken as a health supplement. It is also the foaming agent many high-end restaurants use to make foams for food. So I’ll add 0.5% of the total syrups weight of lecithin powder to my syrups as a foaming agent. Check out my Cream of Coconut recipe for exactly how that is done.

If you want to learn more about this topic and make your drinks better, check out De Forest Saxe’s 1894 book “Saxe’s New Guide Hints to Soda Water Dispensers. Another book I highly recommend reading is Darcy S. O’Neil’s absolutely fascinating book Fix The Pumps, which covers the history and standard practices of early soda fountains.

Recipe Resources

Related Articles

Advertisements
Advertisements

Discover More Classics

Advertisements

Orange Syrup – Old Fashioned Recipe

orange syrup
Advertisements

Orange Syrup

0 from 0 votes Only logged in users can rate recipes
Course: DrinksCuisine: American
Servings

20

servings
Calories

80

kcal
Total time

15

minutes

An old fashion orange syrup made with real fruit juice. This recipe makes a little over 3 cups (750 mLs) of orange syrup.

Ingredients

  • 1.5 cups 1.5 Bitter or Sweet Orange Juice

  • 2 cups 2 Granulated Sugar

  • 1 tbsp 1 Orange Extract

  • Optional Ingredients
  • 1/2 tsp 1/2 Citric Acid (Flavor Enhancer)

  • 2 tsp 2 Lecithin (Foaming Agent)

Directions

  • Add orange juice to a stovetop pot and bring to a light simmer. Add the sugar and stir till dissolved.
  • Remove from the heat and stir in the citric acid.
  • Once the syrup has cooled moisten the lecithin powder with an ounce of water. Once the lecithin is fully dissolved, stir in the lecithin and orange extract.
  • Store in the refrigerator or freeze for storage.

Featured Video

Homemade Orange Syrup

Homemade Orange syrup has a wonderful flavor that store-bought orange syrup can’t match. The most common orange you will find is sweet oranges, which are your regular naval or mandarin variety. Another great orange to use is bitter oranges if you can find them. Some Asian markets will sell them; you can identify them by their bubbly and rough skin. Bitter oranges have a wonderful flavor; while they may be sour, they mix well into syrups with added sugar.

Making Fruit Syrups With Real Fruit Juices

It’s not always possible to make fruit syrup with actual fruit juice, but the ones made with real juice are much better. Many mass-produced syrups are simple syrups flavored with a combination of esters, essential oils, and extracts. Esters are acid and alcohol combinations whose byproducts taste like fruit to humans. For example, ethanol and butanoic acid bond into ethyl butanoate, which tastes like pineapples. Naturally occurring esters in beer production produce its characteristic fruit flavors. When esters are used to flavor foods, they are listed as artificial flavors. Flavors made from essential oils and extracts are listed as natural flavors. For example, those bright red, clear cherry syrups at stores are just simple syrup with bitter almond, cherry stone extract, and red food dye. No juice at all.

This isn’t a bad thing. Essential oils have a fantastic flavor and is the preferred method for making herb and spice flavored syrups; some prefer artificial ester flavors to real ones. I LOVE artificial grape flavor, which is methyl anthranilate. But these tend to be one-dimensional flavors, making them easy to recognize as unnatural. Real fruit juice has a complex flavor: water-soluble flavors, metals, salts, bitter flavors, acids, carbohydrates, etc. A syrup made with a combination of real fruit juice, essential oils, and extracts will have a rich, complex flavor that no average store-bought syrup can match. For the curious, orange ester is Octyl ethanoate.

When To Add Citric Acid To A Syrup.

Adding a small amount of citric acid will significantly enhance the flavor of your fruit-based syrups and make their flavor pop even when diluted. Here is a quick explanation of balancing flavors.

Traditional flavor structure is broken into four groups (ignoring umami as it’s not applicable here). The four groups are salty, sour, sweet, and bitter. And it is the interplay of these four groups that create a flavor profile. Flavor profiles can be balanced or unbalanced. Being unbalanced is not a bad thing. It’s just a choice, like adding a salted rim to a margarita or sweet and sour sauce, but a balanced profile is usually the goal. Salty, sour, and sweet all counter each other in a flavor triangle, with bitter being the odd one out as only sweet balances it. Now back to adding acids to syrups.

In the case of orange syrup, a little citric acid balances the sweetness and makes for a more noticeable orange flavor. if the only flavor is sweet then it overwhelms the taste buds and inhibits your ability to taste the orange. A little acid will cut through the sweetness and activate additional taste buds, resulting in a more complete tasting experience.

When To Add A Foaming Agent To Syrups.

Realistically all syrups should have a foaming agent. There are many drinks that should be cold, still, and foamless, but that can be controlled by how the drink is mixed. It was typical for high-end sodas in the late 1800s to have a nice foam on top. Similar to high-end molecular gastronomy restaurants today, a nice soda fountain would ensure that some drinks had an air or foam on top as you sipped your drink. The foam provides both a creamy texture and olfactory stimulation. These were called foaming agents, and in the 1800s, soap bark or other extracts were added to syrups to provide foam when shaken and mixed with soda water. A popular one today in the United States is propylene glycol, and while it is “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) in the US, it is banned for consumption in the EU. Another modern alternative, and the one I use, is adding lecithin to my syrups. Lecithin is flavor neutral, a natural emulsifier that provides a nice foam, and is often taken as a health supplement. It is also the foaming agent many high-end restaurants use to make foams for food. So I’ll add 0.5% of the total syrups weight of lecithin powder to my syrups as a foaming agent.

Again many drinks contain syrup that should be foamless, like a mint julep, an old-fashioned sazerac, etc., but that can be controlled by stirring the drink instead of shaking it.

Recipe Resources

Related Articles

Advertisements
Advertisements

Discover More Classics

Advertisements