5 Ingredients or Fewer

Cherry & Thai Basil Soda

by:
June  1, 2011
0
0 Ratings
  • Serves 4
Author Notes

A collaboration between Brooklyn's beloved Brooklyn Soda Works and Working Class Foodies. Recipe by Brooklyn Soda Works.

Brooklyn Soda Works is a small company devoted to crafting unique and 'adult' soda flavors from the best seasonal ingredients. You can learn more about them, including where to find their sodas, at brooklynsodaworks.com. —wcfoodies

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Ingredients
  • 1 bunch Thai Basil
  • 500 milliliters cold water
  • 1/2 pint cherries - sliced in half, stems removed
  • 800 milliliters water
  • 1/4 cup white sugar (to taste)
Directions
  1. The night before: remove the Basil leaves from the stems and wash well. Discard any brown/wilted leaves. Add the leaves to the 500mL cold water and muddle/bruise with a wooden spoon or muddler. Refrigerate overnight.
  2. Once the cherries are rinsed, stemmed, and halved, add to the 800mL water and boil for about 45 minutes.
  3. When the cherries are boiled and have lost most of their color, taste the juice and add sugar, about 1/4 cup, if necessary. Filter the juice through a strainer; be sure to remove any pulpy bits (a fine sieve or gold coffee filter is best). You want the juice as clear as possible. Press out any remaining juice from the cherries
  4. Once the fruit juice is cool, strain the Thai Basil-infused water into the cherry juice.
  5. If using a Soda Siphon, pour the juice into your pre-chilled Soda Siphon, lock in the CO2 cartridge, shake well, and refrigerate overnight. If using a SodaStream carbonator, pour the juice into the bottle and carbonate, carefully, until the soda is carbonated to your liking. Serve immediately and very chilled.

See what other Food52ers are saying.

2 Reviews

Dominik M. April 30, 2013
Basil can be rapid infused in an iSi siphon, which results into a superior, much cleaner flavors [check on cookingissues dot com].
For the cherries [or other "wet" fruits] I love to use Heston Blumenthal's technique, using sugar as osmosis "catalyst". Just cut or coarsely smash cherries and pour sugar over it. Refrigerate it over night and the next day, you will have a beautiful, very fruity [no jammy] and concentrated syrup.

to make a great soda, you would need also some additional acid - either way citric acid, phosphoric acid and/or some additional sodium citrate...
wcfoodies June 1, 2011
You can watch a video on how to make this soda, and more about Brooklyn Soda Works, here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yte3_B0fteY&list=SL