Home Brew Part 2

Inspired by my foray into ginger ale brewing and this summer’s foraging in Central Park this past weekend I finally got around to making my own root beer. Something about making soda (or maraschino cherries) feels more like mad scientist work than cooking or baking and leaves me feeling like some sort of magical god of the kitchen so it should come as no surprise that brewing root beer required me to dive into the world of the occult. Most of the root beer recipes on the internet involve “root beer extract” but I felt this would be tantamount to cheating – I mean anyone can mix extract with sugar and water but I’m a mad scientist! In order to make root beer truly from scratch I had to find a source for licorice root, cherry bark and sarsaparilla root and after an unsuccessful hunt through the Chinatown herbalist shops I turned to my trusty friend the internet. I soon found out that majority of people shopping for such items have aspiration far beyond soda pop. The only websites carrying these ingredients were named things like AllHailSatan.com and Witches R Us and also sold spell books and velvet cloaks and please don’t beat me up talismans. Undeterred by the questionable mailing lists that I would end up on I placed an order with Archangel Artifacts (Watch while I gloss over the fact that my 13 year old self totally wished for access to a store that sold Don’t Beat Me Up Talismans and that even my current self would kill for a Love Me Now Spell).

I devoted many CPU cycles over at Google to trying to find a root beer recipe that I felt comfortable with but eventually ended up putting together a super Brianna only recipe that is the amalgamation of 2 or 3 less cool widely available internet recipes. The result was spicier than your standard issue A&W but probably not as good as any of the more premium options on the market.

Kick In The Ass Root Beer

1 oz sarsparilla root
1 4 inch long piece of sassafrass root pulled up from the bowls of Central Park
1 oz cherry bark
1/2 oz licorice root
1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
1 cinnamon stick
2 to 4 oz raisins (you can add more if you like their flavor)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup molasses
1 lb white sugar
1 lb brown sugar

Boil the above with 4 quarts of water for 1.5 hours (which should give your home a spicy fall like smell) then strain (I used a paper towel lined mesh strainer) and add

1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 tsp wintergreen extract

I know that wintergreen extract is hard to fine (though they sell it on Amazon) but do not be tempted to go without – the difference in flavor between the extract free syrup and the wintergreen-y post straining concentrate is monumental.

To turn this concoction into soda either mix with 3 parts carbonated water (if you’re not a mad scientist) or mix with 3 parts still water and half a tsp of yeast and leave in a warm place for 24 hours. I find that the yeast method gives frothier bubbles than the carbonated water method but I might be making that up. I'm also tempted to make some root beer popsicles since I have an Ikea popsicle mold taunting me from my tupperware cupboard and November is the perfect time for popsicles!

Last night I served the root beer straight up and in float form to my house guests while we bashed the latest round of wannabee models. The soda was well received but I probably over did it on the molasses.

Cherish: Like having homemade pie as opposed to Sara Lee frozen pie!

Amy: I liked it much better with ice cream (shocking!). Straight up it was too molasses-y but it totally smelled and tasted like root beer – Good job!

Amy and I made numerous attempts to photograph the root beer floats all to no avail so you’ll just have to trust me that they looked and tasted delicious.

Nobody Needs This

Diet Coke Plus is the newest formulation of Diet Coke. Diet Coke Plus was introduced in April 2007 in select areas for test marketing.
Each 8-ounce serving of Diet Coke Plus provides 15% of the daily value for niacin and vitamins B6 and B12, and 10% for zinc and magnesium. ^[1]


Seriously? Did you people learn nothing from New Coke?


My initial thought upon seeing a coworker chug this stuff like Keystone at a High School tire fire was, "way to go Coke!" Finding new ways to scam people this late in the game really has to be admired. Of course I thought the coworker was a bit of sucker. If your health situation is so starved for nutrients that you need to sneak them into your body via soda might I suggest that rather than drinking some Diet Coke you consider seeing a doctor (And eating some damn vegetables!). After doing a little research I found that the scam goes much deeper that previous thought. The people at Coke didn't even make an effort to include nutrients that their target customers (seems safe to assume that this is adult females in western countries) are typically lacking.

According to the World Health Organization:

The most common and important deficiencies for the health of populations are:

• iodine deficiency disorders
• iron deficiency anaemia
• vitamin A deficiency.

so... no niacin, no vitamin B6 or B12 no zinc and no magnesium. Awesome. Just how do the Coke vitamins of choice fair? I've looked that up for you on ye olde internet! god bless the kingdom of tubes!

Niacin
(via Merek)

• Dietary niacin deficiency (causing pellagra) is uncommon in developed countries.

B6
(via NIH)

• Clinical signs of vitamin B₆ deficiency are rarely seen in the United States.
• Individuals with chronic alcohol abuse frequently exhibit lowered plasma levels of pyridoxal 5'-phosphate, the coenzyme form of vitamin B6.

B12

B12 deficiency seems to be a bit more common and it can cause anemia (which is very common in women) so this supplement initially seems like an ok idea. However, upon further research I found that there are many different variants of anemia and Coke picked the wrong one to focus on (In the United States, 20% of all women of childbearing age have iron deficiency anemia). Next!

Zinc
(via NIH)

• Low zinc status has been observed in 30% to 50% of alcoholics. Alcohol decreases the absorption of zinc and increases loss of zinc in urine.

Magnesium
(via NIH)

• Magnesium deficiency is rare.
• Deficiency of magnesium can occur in alcoholics

So the question of the month: Is Coke just choosing vitamins at random in an effort to scam those among us who want very badly to believe that diet soda is healthy or are the trying to target the burgeoning alcoholic community?