Happy Soda

One of my favorite flavors in the world is Pandan. I've run into it a lot in Vietnamese and Indonesian cooking. it's kinda of like a more floral vanilla flavor. I love it in deserts, and I love it even more in soda!

One of the most delicious sodas I've ever had was listed as "Happy Soda" at my local Indonesian restaurant. called Soda Gambria in Indonesia it's a little bit like a richer NY egg cream. a similar idea, flavor syrup, soda water, and instead of just regular milk, it's made with sweetened condensed milk which gives it a much thicker creamier taste.

You can make it with pretty much any syrup that tickles your fancy but my favorite flavor is either pandan (green) or cocopandan (pink). Here's how to mix one up at home...

Ingredients:

• 15ml Cocopandan syrup
• 1tbs Sweetened condensed milk
• 8oz Soda water

Drop your syrup and condensed milk into a regular 8oz glass, fill it up with soda water and stir stir stir!!! Once it's all mixed in you have your self a dream if a drink! I'm not much of a sweet tooth, so you might want to try it with more syrup or condensed milk to make it sweeter and/or richer. However you mix it up though I know you'll love it!

Bring Your Own Bar (booze free post)

Everyone here knows I like things fancy, what a lot of people might not know is that I'm a long standing straight edge girl, and that means I also like my music fast and loud, and living my life sans all recreational drugs. Which of course (and you'll be surprised how often I've had to clarify this) means no booze.

This in mind people might be surprised at my latest purchase, a portable bar set! I ran into this little beauty on Etsy the other week, and knew I had to have it. Now before you all yell "sell out!" here's why this might be one of the best buys I've made in a while...

As an adult when you go to a party there will always be a careful selection of alcoholic beverages, beer, wine, spirits, and on the non alcoholic front, there is usually what ever the kids drink left in the fridge.

Now I like my soda sophisticated, I still want an exciting flavor that isn't run of the mill come cocktail hour, I still like fanciness, I still like to walk around sipping some exquisite drink. I just need to bring my own.

The set is obviously perfectly portable, the retro style goes well with my outfits, and the gleaming gold lids and velvet interior just scream after dark decadence. Into each bottle I can mix up a cordial of syrups, juices and bitters to bring along up to 4 fantastic drinks mixes. The shot glasses on top are just the right measure for the amount of syrup needed to make a standard glass of soda, all it needs is to be measured out into it's own shot glass, poured into a highball, add the club soda, and BAM! No more Sprite at a cocktail party!

The bottles can also hold the mixes at home as part of my drug free cocktail bar, score!


(another nice side point as a straight edge girl, is that buying a set like this vintage, not even the cash spent on glassware goes towards any part of the liquor industry)

Quaintrelle Jelly and Ice Cream

The road to reworking great retro desserts starts with a single step! As much as I L.O.V.E Love Jello, I was looking for greater variety and flavor in my wobbly desserts. Today I did a brief experiment to see if I could use some of the syrups from my soda bar to create some original flavor gelatin desserts...

Originally I was going to try some flashy little bite sized treats, but it looked so good in my new Fishs Eddy bowl that I decided getting it to set was a feat in itself, and I went with the English childhood classic, Jelly & Ice Cream! (that's Jello and ice cream to my American chums). Every one here thinks it's weird but I swear it's great!


Lychee and Elderflower Jelly and Ice Cream


Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup Lychee syrup
• 1/4 cup Elderflower syrup
• 1/2cup Water
• 1 Envelope Knox plain gelatin

Method:

• Sprinkle gelatin over 4tbs water in a small sauce pan and leave for about 5min
• Heat water in larger saucepan to make a water bath, float the smaller pan of gelatin in the water bath and heat gently till gelatin is fully dissolved. Shake occasionally but do not stir to avoid bubbles.
• Once gelatin is dissolved mix in your syrups along with 1/2 a cup of water and stir gently to combine.
• Pour mixture into a bowl or mold.
• Serve along with a scoop of your favorite ice-cream (or in this case frozen custard )
• Feel like a fancy kid.

I'm still refining everything but this should hopefully be tasty step in the right direction to a few real corkers of desserts!

Pretty Things

One thing the cocktail drinker has far and away above the soda drinker is the accoutrements. The world just puts more thought into interesting ways to drink liquor than it does a good spot of fruity fizz.

I've been building up a collection slowly of more and more interesting items for our home soda bar, and thanks to my husband (with help from a good friend) I was recently introduced a mecca of retro glass wear that is perfect for the home soda fountain enthusiast, Fishs Eddy! Everything from tumblers and press-glass pitchers to super awesome printed paper straws.

Our 2nd package just arrived from them today (1st package was these wonderful lidded glass bowls for my birthday, good bye boring Tupperware from picnics!). We are now the proud owners of a fountain worthy straw holder, and a selection of pretty paper suckers to sip our latest soda recipes through

I'd been looking out for some more attractive straws to drop in our sodas for a while, and the local grocery store just doesn't take drinking straws as seriously as I do (just neon kids straws) but finally, I'm set!

We also picked up a fabulous turquoise glass pitcher to keep on the table for water, juice or ice tea. I'm still looking out for other things to add to our collection for entertaining with (vintage punch bowl set, and I kinda feel a vintage tumbler collection coming on) but right now I'm tickled pink drinking my rose Italian soda through a star spangled straw at last :)

Italian Soda:

• 1oz Any syrup (Monin and Torani are the easiest to find)
• 9oz Soda Water

Interesting fact about the Italian soda, it was actually invented in the US! It got it's name because it was mixed from popular syrups from Italy in the 1920's.

Raptureade

When life throws you the rapture, make Raptureade!

Some friends invited us over this afternoon for an end of the world rapture party. Since it's all about bringing your own drinks I thought it would be a good excuse for yet another new soda! I was trying to think of something suitably transcendent and this was the mix I came up with...

Raptureade

1. 20ml Lychee Syrup
2. 10ml Jasmin Syrup
3. Fill a 10oz glass 1/4 full milk
4. Fill the rest of the glass to the top
5. Stir to foam and serve!

I suppose it is kinda of like a classy Calpico type drink but with a subtle floral hint at the end after the milk and sweet lychee.

Topaz Fizz

The weather is warming up so it was high time for some new sodas from our home soda fountain today! This one is a great mix for summer, super refreshing and perfect for drinking outdoors!

Topaz Fizz

1. Fill 1/3 of a 10oz glas with grapefruit juice
2. Add 0.5oz (15ml) passion fruit syrup
3. and 0.5oz (15ml Lychee syrup
4. Fill the rest of the glass with soda water
5. Add ice and a crushed mint sprig (optional)

The mint we planted a few years back always starts to take over our garden this time of year, so this year I'm planing to put it to good use.

I hope a few of you get chance to try these sodas out!

Rose Sunset Soda

I've been on a terrible sugar kick since I got back to the States. Last night, inspired by a traditional phosphate I had in Philly (at the amazing and not to be missed Franklin Fountain), I put an Egyptian twist on a current favorite soda (orange juice and club soda) by adding delicious rose syrup!

Rose Sunset Soda

1. Fill a 10oz glass 1/3 full with orange juice
2. Add a dash (about 15ml 0.5oz) rose syrup
3. Fill the glass with club soda
4. Drop in a maraschino cherry
5. Mix gently and serve!

The flavor is kind of like an Orangina with a subtle hit of rose at the end. This has become my new favorite drink! I think the main reason I love it is because it's not as sweet or fizzy as a lot of sodas can be, so it's really refreshing and light. It'll be perfect when Summer hits!

Syrup Bonanza!

A big order of syrups arrived today for our soda making adventures here at Quaintrelle HQ! 6 full size and 24 tiny samples to play with. Rose and Violet are already 2 of my all time favorite flavors (I can never decide which one of the 2 is my all time favorite), the rest I'm just excited to try. Almond sounds like it should be a good mix for some interesting flavors maybe?

We're still moving on with our home re-model project, as soon as it's all done it'll be time for a fancy mocktail and soda party in our shiny new home!

Soda Jerk

On a trip to Philly last month, I was lucky enough to be staying in a hotel super close to the amazing Franklin Fountain! An old time soda shop selling had made sodas, phosphates and ice creams all in a super quaint building with a an retro radio kicking out jazz age hits. Now as some people know I'm an old school straight edge girl as well as a fancy quaintrelle, so this place was perfect for me, and sent me back home with dreams of sugar plum sodas dancing in my head.

This week Dusty surprised me with a box of flower flavored sodas to flavor drinks and pastries with (to me there is no group of flavors more quaintrelle than flowers, pretty, old school, rare and fancy).
Last night we finally splashed out on a Soda Stream, so with that and our growing syrup collection we're well on our way to a home soda fountain of our own!

My first drink is a mix of my floral flavor favorites, and a love of New York egg creams I developed since moving to the States. I'm calling it the floral egg cream and it's a cinch to whip up for parties, friends or just for yourself!

 Floral Egg Cream
1oz Flower syrup (I'm using the Monin syrups)
2oz milk
Fill the rest of the glass with soda water
Stir and serve!
(if you have an extra frothy rose or violet egg cream, why not sprinkle with candied petals to garnish?)

So far I've tried this with lavender and with jasmine syrups and they were both amazing, still waiting on my violet and rose syrups to arrive for my next flower mixes. I'll let you all know when we come up with some new soda successes for any one else interested in some home soda magic!