[Root Beer Syrup] 150 Year Old Recipe 

Thanks lady! Glad you liked it

Glad you enjoyed it! It was a fun one to make.

Sprechers is good, an and w, barqs. Honestly I kind of like them all. I can’t think of one I dislike. I prefer less sweet ones though. I’ve made sarsaparilla using an old 1800s recipe and it’s my new favorite. It’s super simple. It has a nice clean brighter taste to it. vintageamericancocktails.com/sarsaparilla/

I was asked this on my website recently so I will copy-paste the answer I gave. Ah, a very good and simple question with a not very clear or simple answer. The problem is there is no one perfect supplier. There are many good essential oil suppliers but there are some crumby ones, and there are some cheap ones and some expensive ones. Fortunately, if an oil says it’s steam distilled or cold pressed and undiluted, then it probably is and I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Most oils are not too expensive so a bottle of cold-pressed lemon oil for 15-25 bucks is fine and most likely very high quality. Some though are very expensive. A 10 ml bottle of neroli or rose will never be less than 100 - 150 dollars. If you find a bottle of Neroli for less than that, it is for sure cut with other oils, but it will most likely say it is cut with other oils. In addition, there is no regulatory body overseeing essential oils. There are groups, such as the Essential Oil University, that will perform GCMS testing on oils and certify an oil’s level of purity, but submitting to groups like this is voluntary. The 2 main things to look for when buying oils are: 1). Only use cold press or steam-distilled oils. 2). Only use 100% pure oils. Never use oils cut with other oils. If you want to cover yourself find manufacturers that provide their GCMS oil test results. companies like Eden’s Garden and others do this, but those oils tend to come at a premium. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Lime or lemon oil for 15- 20 bucks is reasonable, but rose oil for 15-20 bucks? Impossible. You can find these oils online and 10-30 ml of pure essential oil will last you a long, long time. 10ml of an oil can fully flavor almost 2000 drinks. That’s over 5 years if you make 1 soda a day. Just to put the cost into perspective. By making your own syrups and sodas think of all the preservatives you are avoiding, but if buying oil stuff is a bit worrisome you can also make a homemade extract with the actual spices and peels. The essence recipes are 5% solutions but a standard extract will be 0.5%. just 10x each flavor for an extract replacing an essence. Instead of 0.5ml, use 5ml. just soak some nutmeg or lemon peels in vodka, add a teaspoon of each infusion, and call it a day. I hope this helps. Again it’s not a simple question to answer.

Yeah you can use the extract however. There was another root beer recipe I found called the Columbia root beer recipe, or something like that, and it had an extract too very similar to this one but it was fermented. I’m not sure about the sassafras flavoring. If the flavor is weak I would add more. Essential oil is very intense and most extracts and flavorings are 5-8% oil alcohol mixtures. If it is like that try using more and see what tastes right.

Thank you so much I appreciate all the information. Thank you! ❤️

@@palomacampos2219 if the sassafras extract flavoring is an oil alcohol mixture use 12.5 mls or 2.5 tsp for a comparable substitute to the pure star anise oil in this recipe. Again play it by ear but that should be a comparable amount.

Wow! Im actually really happy someone is using it and messaging me back about it. I sometimes feel like I’m just projecting it into the ether. A few years back the rum section was much more split up. I had spiced rums and different years of aged rum, dark spiced, this and that, etc. The app even had a substitution ability where if you didn’t have the exact right item but one that was close enough it would list it as makable but with substitutions. The sub feature was added mostly because of rum. It started to get wildly out of hand specifically because rum has SO much nuance that other spirits don’t. Rum has always been the most difficult section to write for and I had to make a lot of generalization to keep it useable. Messing with the rum section too much scares me, but I’ll look into the names. I will add more modern classics, that’s in the plans. Originally I wanted to focus on only old recipes but over the years I’ve had a change of heart about that because there are many great modern drinks too. Thank you for the feedback. It makes me happy to know it’s being used!

@@VintageAmericanCocktailsI’m probably the one that still uses it. It would also be a game changer if you included more low abv, low calorie and non alcoholic drinks. I used the app to make the orgeat lemonade and it was great. I just want to point out that a mojito isn’t shaken, it swiveled. Anyways, great app.