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Making root beer, experiments so far
May. 26th, 2015 10:56 pmMy eventual goal is to make a Moxie extract of some sort, but I'm starting with a root beer. Moxie is fundamentally a root beer which features gentian, a bitter root, as a major flavor component.
Looking through our 19th century apothecary books, which include soda recipes, it seems that there are a few general flavorings that keep showing up in root beer and Moxie recipies.
The main ones which I've seen are caramel coloring, sarsaparilla extract, sassafras, wintergreen oil, and, of course, gentian. With dozens of other flavorings showing up in this recipe or that one, but those are the major ones.
A basic modern-style root beer has three primary flavors, along with whatever else is added to the recipe by the particular manufacturer. They are caramel color, wintergreen, and sarsaparilla. Except, in the United States, "sarsaparilla" isn't really sarsaparilla -- there are several related plants around the world called "sarsaparilla", but none of them grow in North America. American "sarsaparillas" in the 19th century were usually based on sassafras.
So, for the time being, I'm just using an artificial "sarsaparilla" extract. It was made in a lab somewhere, but it is fine for this part of my learning process.
I started with the caramel color. Caramel color is actually a flavoring sweetener, not just a coloring. It's caramelized brown sugar, diluted in water, and I've been able to use that as the only sweetener. Then I added some of the artificial sarsaparilla.
And then I used the wintergreen extract.
Now, wintergreen extract is a VERY interesting substance. I have not yet been able to use a small enough amount of it -- I'm making only a cup or two of syrup at a time, and a single drop is too much for a cup. It smells LOVELY, and the smell of wintergreen plus sarsaparilla immediately says "root beer", even with nothing else.
Pure oil of wintergreen is methyl salicylate, and is a close chemical cousin to aspirin. Oil of wintergreen can itself be an analgesic and anti-inflammatory -- but it's not a good idea to use it that way, because your medically effective dosages are uncomfortably close to your dangerous dosages. A tablespoon of oil of wintergreen is, like, sixty aspirins -- which can kill you.
However, the amounts you use in cooking are orders of magnitude lower, and are fine.
Wintergreen, methyl salicylate, occurs in the wintergreen plant, of course, which is a forest groundcover plant, but also in birch bark. This is why birch bark is a possible ingredient in early root beer recipes, and, indeed, why one of the possible beverages is "birch beer". The birch gives that wintergreen flavor which is necessary for the stuff.
So, to summarize:
At this point, I've got a good handle on caramel coloring. It's a cooked brown sugar syrup which gives that lovely dark brown color in root beer and cola. I understand the concepts behind oil of wintergreen, and have a supply of chemically-manufactured wintergreen. At some point, I may attempt to make my own, from plants, since I assume that the plants will add other more complex flavors to the mix -- the oil of wintergreen I've got is just simply a solution of methyl salicylate, and I assume that wintergreen leaves and birch twigs would include other flavors and smells as well.
I don't have any idea about sarsaparilla, though. The artificial sarsaparilla flavoring I've got is presumably a mixture of flavors. So I'm making a tincture of sassafras root and will see how that goes.
Looking through our 19th century apothecary books, which include soda recipes, it seems that there are a few general flavorings that keep showing up in root beer and Moxie recipies.
The main ones which I've seen are caramel coloring, sarsaparilla extract, sassafras, wintergreen oil, and, of course, gentian. With dozens of other flavorings showing up in this recipe or that one, but those are the major ones.
A basic modern-style root beer has three primary flavors, along with whatever else is added to the recipe by the particular manufacturer. They are caramel color, wintergreen, and sarsaparilla. Except, in the United States, "sarsaparilla" isn't really sarsaparilla -- there are several related plants around the world called "sarsaparilla", but none of them grow in North America. American "sarsaparillas" in the 19th century were usually based on sassafras.
So, for the time being, I'm just using an artificial "sarsaparilla" extract. It was made in a lab somewhere, but it is fine for this part of my learning process.
I started with the caramel color. Caramel color is actually a flavoring sweetener, not just a coloring. It's caramelized brown sugar, diluted in water, and I've been able to use that as the only sweetener. Then I added some of the artificial sarsaparilla.
And then I used the wintergreen extract.
Now, wintergreen extract is a VERY interesting substance. I have not yet been able to use a small enough amount of it -- I'm making only a cup or two of syrup at a time, and a single drop is too much for a cup. It smells LOVELY, and the smell of wintergreen plus sarsaparilla immediately says "root beer", even with nothing else.
Pure oil of wintergreen is methyl salicylate, and is a close chemical cousin to aspirin. Oil of wintergreen can itself be an analgesic and anti-inflammatory -- but it's not a good idea to use it that way, because your medically effective dosages are uncomfortably close to your dangerous dosages. A tablespoon of oil of wintergreen is, like, sixty aspirins -- which can kill you.
However, the amounts you use in cooking are orders of magnitude lower, and are fine.
Wintergreen, methyl salicylate, occurs in the wintergreen plant, of course, which is a forest groundcover plant, but also in birch bark. This is why birch bark is a possible ingredient in early root beer recipes, and, indeed, why one of the possible beverages is "birch beer". The birch gives that wintergreen flavor which is necessary for the stuff.
So, to summarize:
At this point, I've got a good handle on caramel coloring. It's a cooked brown sugar syrup which gives that lovely dark brown color in root beer and cola. I understand the concepts behind oil of wintergreen, and have a supply of chemically-manufactured wintergreen. At some point, I may attempt to make my own, from plants, since I assume that the plants will add other more complex flavors to the mix -- the oil of wintergreen I've got is just simply a solution of methyl salicylate, and I assume that wintergreen leaves and birch twigs would include other flavors and smells as well.
I don't have any idea about sarsaparilla, though. The artificial sarsaparilla flavoring I've got is presumably a mixture of flavors. So I'm making a tincture of sassafras root and will see how that goes.