What is a good recipe for home made carbonated cola (with a similar kick as coca cola or pepsi)?

[aemeijers]

He doesn't spell it out much, but he has the concept right. You are reinventing the wheel, for something you can painlessly buy cheaper than you can recreate it. Buy a used 4-tap soda machine, some bags of syrup, and the tall pressure vessels that add fizz to the water. Like buying beer in kegs, for a fraction of the price per glass than 24-can cases cost. Any prepackaged drink, the container, convenience, and shipping, costs more than the contents.

Mind you, I do understand the impulse to see if you can reverse-engineer it on your own. But don't delude yourself, or attempt to delude SWMBO, that it will save any money, or taste better. It is therapy, and a lot safer than a red convertible and a 20 YO to go with it.

[Jim Elbrecht]

-snip some good points-

I don't think getting a home brew to taste better than commercial soda should be a stretch. [though I prefer water- occasionally diluted with bourbon]

And cheaper. That's where the savings comes in. You can spend a lot of time & $$ on a project before it approaches the cost of a shrink, or a 20yr old or a new car.

Jim

[dgk]

Are you suggesting that the OP wants to cook up soda as a mid-life crisis thing?

Well, here is one approach:

Please note the warning about Gum Arabic.

[Mike Spike`]

Nobody can open a bottle of "Kick" and taste it to see what Elmo was referring to in the OP. It's not the leaf as suggested in at least one of the replies. It's not the corn sugar. It's the co2. Drink your beverage flat (uncarbonated). Then drink your bev erage highly carbonated (use the Fizz Giz from FizzGiz.com to kick it up a notch). Decide if the difference you notice is what you referred to as kick. Quickest way to remove all carbonation from any commercial soda product is to heat it to steaming, stir, allow to cool then refrigerate. That will flatten a soda in nothing flat.