Enjoy These Creative Soft Drink Mixtures for Summer 2022!
| BY JOSH ROTHSTEIN
Summer, 2022 is shaping up to be the best one since the global pandemic began in 2020. People are making travel plans again, going out to local restaurants, and generally enjoying each other’s company for the first time in what feels like forever! As we’re gearing up for what’s to come in the hot summer months ahead, we’re looking forward to enjoying these sweet, sugary soft drinks and soda recipes.
Did you ever mix two different flavored drinks together to make your own unique flavor? One popular thing I did as a kid was mix all of the soda flavors at the restaurants where you could fill up your own drink cup. Depending on where you grew up this could be called either a kamikaze, a graveyard, a suicide or swamp water.
I had the best recipe figured out. I’d do mostly cola, mix in the fruity flavors and just a splash of diet cola. Even as a kid, I realized that the diet would really tie all of the other flavors together.
But, do you think I would try this now that I’m an adult? Probably not, as my days of experimenting are far behind me. But I definitely would simply things quite a bit and make something that is very enjoyable.
For instance, I’ve been known to make my own concoction of Crush Orange Soda and Pepsi to create a sweet, citrusy cola every once in a while. You might think I’m crazy until you’ve tried it!
The Coca-Cola Freestyle Machine took things to a whole new level
If you’ve been to any fast food restaurants lately, perhaps you’ve run into the Coca-Cola Freestyle machine. This modern fountain drink dispenser was introduced in 2009 and boasts a whopping 127 different flavor combinations that you can try.
This machine has definitely sparked some creative drink concoctions that have renewed people’s interest in creating their own unique flavors. One flavor that I discovered on the Freestyle machine is that mixing Mello Yello with just a splash of blue Powerade and you’ll get a flavor that is surprisingly close to Mountain Dew’s Taco Bell exclusive flavor: Baja Blast!
The Freestyle machine sure is fun to experiment with, but if you can’t afford the $20,000 to purchase the machine, there are much cheaper ways to become your own drink mixologist at home.
It turns out, with all the wildly-different flavors of craft sodas available these days, you can create a lot of unique beverages and soda recipes that maybe no one else has thought of yet! You could always go the store-bought route and grab some seltzer water or club soda, some flavored syrups, or fruit punch and create your own concoctions.
So let’s explore some of the creative drink recipes that we think you should try!
Check out some of these soda recipes you can try at home for yourself:
“Mezzo Mix” (Cola with Orange Soda)
Mezzo Mix was a product of the Coca-Cola company that was only sold in Germany in the early 1970’s. Today it is exclusively sold in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It has been released periodically in other countries around the world, but only as part of limited-time only promotions.
As I mentioned before, you can make your own citrusy, orange cola at home by mixing your favorite cola with your favorite orange soda. We tried mixing the Death Valley Cola with their Orange Cream Soda and the result was a creamy, delicious citrusy cola! We think the best mixture is about 70% cola and 30% orange cream soda.
Cherry Sundae
You can make your very own (liquid) version of an ice cream sundae with cherry and vanilla flavored sodas. We’ve made this refreshing drink with Dang! Italian Cherry Soda and Original New York Seltzer Vanilla Cream Soda. The mix of tastes is just like having a fizzy ice cream sundae with cherry syrup on top!
This mixture can be made to taste, but we think half and half is just fine. If you don’t happen to have a vanilla cream soda handy, you could always use a club soda or sparkling water, mixed with a little simple syrup and vanilla extract to taste. Talk about the perfect refreshing drink for a hot summer’s day!
“Rasparilla” (Raspberry Root Beer)
One way to give a bold, fruity kick to your everyday root beer is to add a splash of some raspberry soda to the mix. We think the Jic Jac Blue Raspberry Soda makes a great addition to Boot’s Beverages Sarsaparilla Root Beer. Many people already enjoy raspberry ginger ale, but this takes the mixture of flavors to a whole new level.
This mixture is best at an 80% root beer, 20% blue raspberry ratio. While the root beer is a very strong flavor, you don’t want the raspberry to come through too strong on this drink recipe!
Lemon-Lime Grape Soda
Fruity sodas are all the rage during the hot summer months. One way to make a grape soda a little lighter is to add a cool, refreshing flavor of lemon lime soda to the mix. For this concoction, we combined Dublin’s 2 Way Lemon Lime Soda with Faygo Grape Soda. This worked deliciously as a 50/50 mix, but you could always change that up to satisfy your cravings.
Become your own mixologist with the wide-variety of glass bottle craft sodas from Redstone Foods!
These were just a few of the ideas we’ve tried with great success. We’re well-aware that there’s so many more flavor combinations you can try! We have a selection of over 500 gourmet sodas to choose from, so the sky is the limit on your own imagination!
One crazy idea we thought of, (but haven’t been brave enough yet to try) is a ranch dressing and hot wings soda! Rocket Fizz’s Lester’s Fixin’s Soda offers some incredibly unique flavors in their glass bottle craft soda lineup. Some of these wild flavors include Buffalo Wing Soda and Ranch Dressing Soda. Now we love ourselves some hot wings, drizzled in ranch dressing, but we haven’t brought ourselves to try this concoction just yet.
Do you think we’ve missed any obvious flavor combinations or soda recipes in this article? Did we miss out on your favorite ginger ale concoction? If so, hit us up on our social media channels and let us know what ideas you have! You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and our LinkedIn page. We would love to hear from you!
If you’re a candy shop or soda fountain, we would love to gain the opportunity to serve you. Since summer is fast-approaching, our inventory is becoming limited and with the red-hot, post-pandemic economy right now, we recommend you get your orders in as soon as possible.
Get ahead of your summer and fall orders now! Give us a call today:
