Homemade Chocolate Soda

This past summer I began brewing my own soda, in the traditional sense. Using roots from the earth, sugar or molasses, and yeast. The results were better than I could have expected and I encourage anyone who wants to attempt homemade beverages themselves to do so. Great information can be found in the book Homemade Root Beer and Soda Pop. I originally had the desire after seeing a recipe in Saveur magazine. After my first batch of root beer I brewed ginger ale and sarsaparilla. All three attempts were fairly to moderately successful; winning me the respect and admiration of my friends and girlfriend.

Then I got cocky.

When I was a child I fell in love with a soda called Kayo. It came in six packs. For some reason I remember cans always had dust on the tops. After blowing the dust off, I enjoyed the elixir made from cocoa and sugar and probably countless additives and preservatives. It is no longer available. There are other chocolate sodas but they don’t compare.

I attempted my own chocolate soda about a month ago. I combined water, sugar, cocoa, cinnamon sticks and some vanilla beans in a large stock pot. I boiled for about fifteen minutes, stirring constantly. I let it steep. Since cocoa has a chalky quality I stirred the mixture occasionally, making sure it was mixing appropriately.

After I removed it from the heat I added another 2 to 2 1/2 quarts of water to dilute the mixture. I strained out the vanilla beans and cinnamon sticks. Once it cooled to room temperature I added my yeast, then bottled. The next day, about 12 to 16 hours later, I put the bottles in the fridge to stop fermentation. Once cooled, I tried it.

It was not quite what I was expecting. It wasn’t awful, but not good. It certainly smelled chocolaty. The cinnamon was much more powerful than I would have thought. The vanilla was hardly noticeable. It was sweet and cold, so in that respect a success.

My brother and girlfriend and other friends who were the guinea pigs claimed it was all right, but I have a sneaking suspicion they were just trying to save my feelings, and am sure their respect and admiration for me dropped considerably.

I’m going to keep an ongoing tab on my attempts at successfully brewing chocolate soda. My goal is to brew something as sublime as Kayo soda is in my memory. This may not be a possibility, but I will toil on nonetheless.