An artist and a chemist making soda and carbonated juices from scratch, using fresh and seasonal ingredients. Fresh draft soda - available at the Brooklyn Flea on the weekends & select bars & restaurants

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Coming soon to Beer Table - dried lemon, juniper & hops soda!

Last week we dropped off a keg of apple & ginger carbonated juice with the good folks at Beer Table (in Park Slope) who now have a dedicated soda draft line. It seemed to go over well which made us very happy. This week Antonio has been hard at work finalizing the recipe for a more experimental bitter soda -  a dried lemon, juniper & hops soda - which we think will go great with the range of beer that Beer Table has.


The dried lemons we picked up from our favorite spice store in Manhattan, Dual Speciality Store in the East Village. These are lemons or limes that have been dried in the sun until they are hard, dry and nearly black. Apparently they are used in some middle eastern cuisines.  We had been eyeing them for months, wondering what they tasted like (delicious tart, lemony, earthy funk!) and finally decided to pick some up and try some recipes.  Juniper berries (not really a berry, but the female seed cone produced by some species of juniper trees) are used in northern European cuisines, and are one of the predominant flavors in gin. Hops of course are used in beer, we used chinook hops, a very bitter and very aromatic variety used in American style IPA's.  So, while these components are from very different places, they have overlapping but still complementary flavor profiles that make for a nice mix- the tartness and earthiness of the lemons seems to pair really well with the piney aromatics of the juniper berries and the bitter, citrousy notes of the chinook hops.  There is also a touch of raw honey to balance things out, though the soda is not at all sweet. 


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Look for this flavor at Beer Table sometime early January, and stop by now to try some apple ginger and some great beer.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Happy Holidays! A little cranberry magic to spice up your meals

Happy Holidays!  I'm writing from Hong Kong where I'm awaiting the arrival of the other half who has been slogging away in the lab and the kitchen making a couple of kegs in time for the Christmas / New Year's week at Beer Table. Go Tony!

It's only another couple of days till Christmas and if you're getting sick of the egg nog, here's a recipe that should spice things up. This recipe was first seen in Nona Brooklyn's Food & Drinks Picks for the Holidays, collected by Rebecca Lando of Working Class Foodies - check out the guide for other delicious ideas from other Brooklyn food peeps, such as Danielle from Brooklyn Home Brew and Liz from Liddabit Sweets. 

Spiced Cranberry Soda

(makes one liter)

half pound cranberries
1 cinnamon stick
10 cloves
2 balls allspice (feel free to experiment with other spices such as nutmeg)
1/4 cup sugar

1. Bring 700ml water to boil in pot. Add in cinnamon.
2. Clean cranberries. Add to water.
3. Simmer for 20 minutes, stirring regularly.
4. Add in clove and allspice. Cut heat. Leave everything in pot for 5 minutes.
5. Strain and filter.
6. Pour into a carbonating device such as a ISI soda siphon. Add in cold water. Carbonate (if you don't own a soda siphon, you can simply add seltzer water to the juice to get a fizzy beverage, or this cranberry juice is also a great mixer for use with vodka).


Tuesday, December 14, 2010

A successful party! Brooklyn Soda Works at Beer Table!

It was great to see a number of you at our party with SCRATCHbread last week - and congratulations to SCRATCHbread for making their goal on Kickstarter. We served up lemon, thyme & green peppercorn soda (paired with gin) and spiced apple cider with bourbon, while Matt & his team made up a delicious batch of fondue - perfect for a freezing cold evening. Thanks again to Red Jacket Orchard and The Manhattan Cocktail Classic for kindly donating the apples and booze!
We still have a couple of things up our sleeve for the last part of 2010. We're happy to announce that Beer Table in Park Slope will soon be carrying our soda. We'll be starting off with a keg of apple & ginger soda this coming weekend to celebrating the new draft system that Justin from Beer Table has installed, and hopefully after that we'll be dropping off fun new flavors with them on a regular basis.  

We're incredibly excited about working with Justin and Tricia - their bar has been the location of a number of our 'work meetings' and they also host a monthly home-brewer's meet-up where we've tried out test batches of root beer on unwitting home-brewers. They have one of the most eclectic and interesting beer selections in New York, and their space is always wonderfully welcoming and intimate. Plus its one of the few places I get to eat a malt gelato after drinking a beer that smells like engine oil.

Also happening this weekend (December 18th from 3-5pm) is a demo that I'll be doing in Pantry Magic in Hong Kong (where I'll be for the rest of December). I'll be demonstrating how to make your own spiced cranberry soda, as well as a lemongrass & lime soda, and a salty lemon & ginger soda.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Brooklyn Soda Works & SCRATCHbread invite you to a holiday party & fundraiser!

You're invited!
To celebrate the end of our successful first season and our upcoming partnership with SCRATCHbread, we're co-hosting a fizzy fondue extravaganza & fundraiser.


We'll be making:

- gin cocktails with our lemon, thyme & green peppercorn soda
- bourbon spiced apple cider with cider from Red Jacket Orchards
SCRATCHbread will be slinging fondue featuring their delicious breads and Granny Smith apples from Red Jacket Orchards.

When: December 7th, 5-9pm

Where: 1069 Bedford Ave (at Lexington)

$10 at the door gets you fondue or a drink (all proceeds go towards SCRATCHbread's Kickstarter campaign)


Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Wallpaper* article! And news about our kitchen

It's been a busy couple of weeks. Even though we're not at our Flea spot we've continued doing private events and working on expanding our operation. Part of our plan involves having a more permanent kitchen location and we're happy to announce that next year we'll be sharing SCRATCHbread's kitchen space in Bed-Stuy. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of trying one of Matt's insane sticky chai buns or addictive focaccia's, you can pick up their baked goods at a number of different markets and locations as well as support their Kickstarter campaign.  They've been great neighbors at the Flea and we look forward to sharing their space with them!

In addition we were happy to see our bottles featured beautifully in the December issue of Wallpaper* magazine.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

This Saturday=our last Flea on the season. And more root beer adventures

This Saturday October 30 will be the last Flea appearance for us this season. It's nearly Halloween, it's getting chilly, plus it's time for us to focus on building out our kitchen space and expanding properly.

Come over this Saturday to enjoy our hot spiced apple cider! It won't be carbonated but like everything else we do, its made from fruit we've juiced and spiced ourselves. We'll also have the popular cranberry & cinnamon soda.  There's a good chance I'll show up as a porcupine too (it's Halloween!).

In other news, we've been continuing to work hard on our root beer recipe. We picked some fresh wintergreen from a hike in North Lake in the Catskills last weekend, so these may make an appearance in a new batch soon.


We have grand plans for winter, including building out a space in Scratchbread's Kitchen (who are launching a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for their community-oriented store in Bed Stuy) and working on new flavors (quince! pineapple & wasabi!) as well as continuing to do individual events. Stay tuned.

Friday, October 15, 2010

NY Daily News profile - and cranberries! Earl Grey! More apples!

Okay... we admit it, we couldn't find any local cranberries from a happy local farmer.  Apparently Ocean Spray buy up every ounce of cranberries grown in New Jersey. There are no cranberries to be found in your local green market despite the fact that its cranberry season.  


But - they're great, they're good for you, and they remind Tony of making pies and crumbles for Thanksgiving. So we made a spiced cranberry soda. it's like the insides of the perfect fall crumble but made into a bubble beverage.


Plus we'll have the slightly weird but very lovable, Earl Grey soda. This time we're brewed it with some lavender (my sister has been encouraging us to try lavender for a while and I found some great fresh ones from Stokes Farm).


And as always, since its apple season and people can't seem to get enough of the apple & ginger, we're bringing it back for another week.


Thanks to NY Daily news for this nice profile on us!



Please note that we will NOT be at the Flea next week (october 23rd). We will be there Oct 30 (in costume???)  and that will probably be our last day at the Flea this year.  Yes its true.  The cold weather is approaching and no one wants to drink cold bubbly drinks outdoors when its 40F.  But we'll be doing random other events all winter, so stay tuned.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Apples and more apples! our new chai-spiced apple fizzy juice

After an absence of two weeks (one to go to Montauk, and the other to participate in Harvest Fest at Stone Barns) we're back at the Flea this weekend. 
 (our booth at Stone Barns)


We're looking forward to debuting a new flavor: chai-spiced apple! We'll be using Empire and Macoun apples for the chai-spiced flavor. In addition we'll have Golden Supreme apple and ginger, plus some more sorrel soda for you hibiscus lovers out there.


The chai-spiced apple carbonated juice won't have any actual tea in, but we're using the spices that are commonly associated with chai - cardamom, star anise, clove and cinnamon.

Our dates for October:
October 9th - we'll be at the Flea with the above mentioned flavors
October 16th - at the Flea.. hopefully with a pear flavor?
October 23rd - it's Antonio's birthday so we're taking a break to go hike in the Catskills
October 30th - turn up to the Flea in a costume from an obscure television show and you get a discount.  Guess my costume and what television show its from and the fizzy beverage is on us.

Friday, September 17, 2010

Concord grapes, and the first apples. Plus our fall schedule

Fall has begun, and we're starting to see the start of the apple season. This week we have our first batch of apple soda, in addition to a concord grape flavour (paired with fennel seed).
The grapes are sweet & tart - full of flavour. They were a hit last week so we're bringing them back for a second week.  


In addition we'll have Golden Supreme apples (from Red Jacket Orchard) with ginger, and we are debuting our root beer!  Tony's been working really hard on balancing out all the spices and herbs so let us know what you think.


Our fall schedule:
September 18 (Saturday): our usual spot at the Brooklyn Flea
September 25 (Saturday): no Flea for us. we're taking a short camping trip to Montauk and stopping by a bunch of farms and vineyards along the way
October 2 (Saturday): no Flea again. We'll be at the Stone Barns Harvest Fest from 10am - 3pm. We've never been to Stone Barns so we're pretty excited about this (especially as there is a pie bake off taking place....) 

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Thai fruits - tamarind, galangal and green mango

I'm back from my trip home to Hong Kong, but I thought I'd write about the last batch of soda I did while home.

I went to lunch a few days before I left in Kowloon City (the home of the now demolished infamous Kowloon Walled City, featured in movies ranging from the Van Damm vehicle, Blood Sport to Jackie Chan's Crime Story). This former industrial area is now a cosy residential district that has a number of Thai restaurants and grocery stores.  The Thai fruit and vegetables in the small grocery stores often can't be found in regular markets elsewhere in Hong Kong so I took the opportunity to pick up some fruit for experimenting.

Tamarind and galangal:
Tamarind fruit is a sort of legume, with a hard shell with 6-12 pods. The flesh is juicy and quite sour but as the fruit matures the flesh becomes sweeter. Its grown in areas around the tropics from south Asia to Mexico and can be found in everything from agua frescas to jams.
Galangal is a root, related to ginger but tastes very different, originating in Indonesia, and is used commonly in S.E Asian cooking. 
I bought a small bag of tamarind pulp (the exterior pod had been removed) and soaked it in sugar water over night.  I then poured it through a fine filter to get the sweetened tamarind juice.


Grated galangal was added to the tamarind juice, then additional water added (tamarind packs a serious kick so it needs to be diluted) before carbonating in my trusty ISI soda siphon.  
(yet another thirst-quenching drink that my sister is enjoying!)

Green mango and chili
I also picked up a couple of green, unripe mangoes - tart, crispy and refreshing, they're common in Thai salads, very different from the sweet, succulent flesh of ripe yellow mangoes. 


I diced a small Thai chili, cooked it in sugar water solution for about 15 minutes, then added it to the juice of two green mangos. One chili pepper gave it just the right amount of a kick in the back of your throat. 


Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Japanese inspired beverages - shiso, limes and water melon

I recently got back from a short holiday to Kyoto and Osaka with my family. It was the end of peach season there but I was still lucky enough to have one of their incredibly delectable, juicy and very expensive peaches. Unfortunately they're very hard to ship so I wasn't able to bring one back to Hong Kong.

I did discover the joys of the simple Japanese lime. Smaller and thinner skinned than a Mexican or even a Thai lime, the flavor is quite distinct. Shiso is also a very familiar sight in the markets there - a member of the mint family, its leaves are large and relatively round. I decided to try making a simple shiso & lime carbonated juice, cold-steeping the shiso leaves in the sweetened lime juice, then carbonating.

The result was a very satisfying and fragrant drink - perfect for the hot summer weather.

I thought I'd give a watermelon drink a go, especially since watermelons are plentiful right now (and they're small miniaturized versions too for easy storage).
Half of this watermelon was juiced, then the shiso was muddled and cold-steeped in the juice overnight, before being sweetened with bit of simple syrup.


My satisfied sister, Sarah (otherwise known as our PR help, Lulu). 

Friday, September 3, 2010

Hong Kong carbonated juices (guavas, rose apples and starfruit!)

I'm posting from Hong Kong this week (Tony will still be doing the Flea this coming Saturday with West Indies inspired flavours). I grew up eating a variety of fruit that I often still don't know the English names for, and often miss the tropical fruits.  In addition, Hong Kong has plentiful juice stands and delicious fruit based drinks that help the population of 7 million beat the long summer heat.

First up: Guava and black pepper!  Tony was amazed to discover last winter when he visited that the guavas in S.E. Asia taste radically different from what he grew up eating.  They're smaller and have a more delicate, less earthy taste.  I bought some local guavas that are even smaller than the Thai guavas, and smelled absolutely amazing.

They were put through the juicer, cold steeped with black pepper then carbonated, resulting in a light refreshing drink with a nice, very slight pepper-tingle at the end.

Next up: starfruit and rose apple.  Starfruit come into season early autumn, so I was a tad early but they were starting to show up at the markets. Beautiful and crisp tasting.
Best way to eat them is to slice off the outer rind on the 'points' of the star, then slice the fruit into cross sections.

The flavor is so light and crisp that I didn't want to distract from it too much with a spice or herb, so started thinking about other fruits that it would go well with.

One of Tony's favourite discoveries this past January in Hong Kong was the rose apple.
Rose apples have a superb crunch and texture to them, but very little tartness. I thought I'd pair the two - even though they're both quite light in taste their flavour profiles are different enough to make a complex juice.

Unfortunately most of these fruits are quite expensive in the US, so I doubt I'll be able to scale them up when I'm back in New York, but on a small scale, they were a fun experiment.

One that I think we can replicate on a larger scale is salty lemon and ginger.  Salty lemonade pops again regularly on the menus of cha-chaan-tengs, Hong Kong diners, and its made using preserved salty lemons put into 7-Up or Sprite.  I thought I'd do a Brooklyn Soda Works version using salty lemons I picked up from a small market stall in one of the outdoor markets, hand made by a friendly woman who's name and location of the stall I've forgotten...

The lemons aren't overly salty - roughly a quarter of a lemon per serving, so I used 4 quarter wedges for a liter, boiling it in water for ten minutes, then added in the raw ginger juice.

The result: tart, refreshing and not too salty.

That's it from me in Hong Kong.  And if you're in Brooklyn this Labor Day weekend, go check out Tony's lovingly created Caribbean inspired drinks on Saturday!

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Labor Day Weekend = Caribbean soda time!


In honor of the West Indies day parade, we'll be bringing strictly island flavors for all the Caribbean people! (or any and all island dwelling, or island loving people)  The West Indies = the islands in the Caribbean.  The name derives from Columbus, who thought he was on the west side of India when he arrived.  The history of the region is fascinating and tumultuous, heavily shaped by colonialism and the slave trade, but that's a whole other topic for another time, we're here to talk about fruit!  Caroline is from Hong Kong and I'm half Puerto Rican (a part of the West Indies of course). Both are tropical islands that love their fruit, so tropical flavors are especially fun for us.  Please come out and taste!

The flavors at the Brooklyn Flea this Saturday will be-
Sorrel
Ginger and Lime
Cherimoya (sweetsop)

more about the flavors after the page break...

Friday, August 27, 2010

Plum and Raspberry flavors for Saturday!

The flavors this week will be-
Vanier Plum with a hint of Rosemary
Raspberry and Ginger

Both the plums and the rasperries are from red jacket orchards and both were excellent but the fall raspberries in particular were fantastic, pick some up if you see them at any farm markets!


The back of the car after my early morning farm market run. 

Friday, August 13, 2010

Plums & blackberries for this Saturday. And a Pie in the Park benefit on Sunday

It's become hard to figure out what fruit to use - everything looks so great at the greenmarkets.
This week we've decided to go for yellow plums from Red Jacket, and have paired it up with our beloved ginger.
So succulent and juicy...

And blackberries are in season too - we get ours from Phillips Farm in south NJ. We'll be debuting our blackberry cream soda this Friday. 
In other news, I attempted a sweet corn and basil soda last week. Corn was everywhere when I was in N. Carolina and its just starting to come into season up here. Still need to figure out how to balance out the flavors, but hopefully a sweetcorn flavor will make its appearance at some point.  Sweetcorn is used frequently in south-east Asian desserts, often in conjunction with coconut or tapioca.  Check out this recipe for ice kacang, a Malaysian shaved ice dessert.
This week we can be found at our usual spot at the Brooklyn Flea (right next to Porchetta and Good Batch). In addition our yellow plum & ginger will be available at the worthy Pie in the Park event in Prospect Park, organized by Lauren Cucinotta.  All proceeds will go towards our other Flea neighbors, Scratchbread who are running their own Kickstarter campaign to secure their own retail space (keeping our fingers crossed as their retail location is a couple of blocks from our apartment)

Friday, August 6, 2010

Dates and events for August

Just a quick post to say we will not be at the Flea this Saturday (August 7th) but we will be back in force for the rest of August, including selling at L Magazine's Summerscreen in Williamsburg on Wed August 11th for their screening of Point Break!

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Ranked #1! thanks Adam Platt. And we will be at the Flea this Saturday

It's been an exciting week - we found out that the chief restaurant critic for New York magazine ranked us #1 in his taste test of eight local New York soda's!
And yes, we will be there this coming Saturday (july 31st) with the watermelon, tarragon and lemon flavor, and another one that we're still cooking up.

So thanks again to everyone who's supported us through our mad-cap adventure. What started as an attempt to brew ginger beer last winter has become quite a project, and we're constantly amazed at the response we've received!

Friday, July 23, 2010

2 new flavors: red currant & cardamom, plus a Thai inspired one!

Sorry for all the regulars who looked for our booth last Saturday at the Flea; we were taking a break in Asheville North Carolina, eating up some grits and enjoying rafting down the Nolichucky River.

Tony's back this week with two new flavors:
- Red currant and cardamom
- Lime, cilantro, mint and chile (inspired by our favorite Thai restaurant, Sripraphai in Queens)

And to clarify, this July we are only at the Flea every other week, so we will not be there next week. We hope to be back in force later on in summer.

One more thing, if you're in Asheville and want to check out a great local restaurant, try Early Girl Eatery for brunch  (see photo above!) and the tasting menu at Table is a good deal for dinner.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Watermelon flavors and according to Time Out we're a rising star!

Posting remotely right now (I'm in North Carolina, the furthest south I've ever been and enjoying peach season).
Tony's been a busy cooking up new flavors, including watermelon, cilantro, jalapeno and lime (our apologies to all the cilantro haters out there, but too bad, we love the stuff); and a watermelon tarragon and lemon which he ended up taking to the Flea and the very successful Rooftop films & Kickstarter evening last week. It looks like its going to be a scorcher of a summer, so here's to more mouth watering beverages.
And thanks to Rachel Wharton from Time Out and Edible Brooklyn for naming us one of the Rising Stars of the food markets in NY! http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/restaurants-bars/87146/food-markets-rising-stars


Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Our first how-to video by Working Class Foodies

Thanks to Rebecca and Kit at Working Class Foodies for this fun DIY video on how to make your own cherry & Thai basil soda.

It was my first time being on camera and trying to fumble around the kitchen at the same time!

Friday, June 25, 2010

Earl Grey! Raspberry season!

We've decided to try a caffeinated tea soda.  I grew up drinking tea, and Earl Grey has been a favorite of mine for a long time.  Unfortunately we can't replicate the experience of a milky Earl Grey, but thought it a fizzy Earl Grey would be a good experiment, especially for those early morning Brooklyn Flea visitors!

And its raspberry season - these tart little berries are everywhere in the farmer's markets.  We picked some up  yesterday, along with some mint, and will be debuting raspberry & mint tomorrow too.


In the mean time, please note that we will only be the Flea every other Saturday this coming July. I'm heading to North Carolina for a residency for a month, so Tony will be working mostly by himself for the whole month.  However, in addition to the Flea, we will be participating in 2 events:
July 15th at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden
and on July 9th,  Rooftop Films with Kickstarter have paired up to present a series of films funded by Kickstarter.

Friday, June 11, 2010

new flavors: salty plum, thai basil & lime; plus strawberry & green peppercorn

back from a very productive and tasty trip to Montreal!  Dinner at Au Pied de Cochon was wonderful, and we very shyly gave the sous chef our maple bacon soda!

2 new flavors this week: the first (salty plum, thai basil and lime) we'll name after our friends Van and his brother Don. It's the Vu Brothers  soda! We made it for them on their birthday, inspired by a Vietnamese drink that uses salty plums.  Yes, it sounds slightly odd, but trust us, the combination of salty and sweet is the perfect way to quence your thirst.

the second is a variation on a strawberry one we did two weeks ago.  This time we're using green peppercorns for an extra kick.  Strawberries are from Philips Farm in south Jersey.

And the third flavor: the regular, cucumber, lime and sea salt. See you guys at the Flea!

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Road trip to Montreal with maple bacon soda - no Flea this week

We're taking our first mini vacation in a long time and driving up to Montreal for the music festival Mutek, which is coincidentally the same weekend as their Beer Festival!  We have reservations for Au Pied de Cochon, and are very excited to take a break for 4 days.

And equally important is the cargo we'll be taking up with us!  One liter of our experimental maple bacon soda.  We tried this a few month ago and decided it'd be fun (or foolish) to take a bottle up with us to try impress Au Pied de Cochon.  It's currently carbonating in our fridge.  (Just to recap, in order to extract bacon water you have to cook the bacon in water, then take this fatty bacon-water and add it to a gelatin mixture, freeze it in an ice cube tray, then as the bacon-gelatin mixture melts, the fat is left behind leaving a clear fat-free bacon liquid which you can then add maple syrup to)


This does mean that we won't be at the Flea this weekend, but our bottles will still be available at Blue Hill and Palo Santo.

Friday, May 28, 2010

Strawberry, hops & pink peppercorn! And an article on CHOW.com

It's strawberry season in south Jersey!  The crop this year seems to be quite big - I picked up 2 flats of strawberries from Cherry Lane farm (they have a stand at Union Square farmer's market).

And Tony has wanted to try out a hops soda for months now, so here we go. We picked up fresh local hops from Brooklyn Kitchn (Chinook hops) and steeped them with ground up pink peppercorn to extract the floral notes without too much of the bitter flavors. We'll be debuting this at the Flea this Saturday, so come by and check it out.


And in other news, thanks to Roxanne the associate editor at CHOW.com for including us in her article on how food entrepreneurs are using platforms like kickstarter.com to start businesses. We've mentioned this a several times before, but we really couldn't have done this without the help of people who pledged to us on Kickstarter.  It's a great platform and we encourage anyone with an idea to use it.
The story can be read here: http://www.chow.com/stories/12176?tag=main_body;feature_story

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Rhubarb & Thai Basil - and a potential love story?



A few days late, but last weekend was ridiculously busy! We sold out of 6 kegs by 3:45pm.  I'm sure a lot of it had to do with being featured in DailyCandy's weekend guide:


And our rhubarb & thai basil turned out really well - despite my worries about how people would react to such an unexpected combination.  By the way, there are several types of Thai basil... the one below is just one of 3 or 4 that is commonly used in Thai cuisine.  The basil below is the basil that is usually found in Vietnamese pho, and has purple stems with a distinct licorice-y taste. 

One of the most interesting parts of working the Flea is meeting the people who want to try our slightly odd-ball beverages.  Our friends mentioned it would be fun to post some of the stories that we hear, and I thought I'd start with one that particularly tickled me.  
We received a greater number of customers than usual even though we bought 6 kegs which would normally last us till 4:30pm, but this week we were out at 3:45pm.  We were starting to clean up when a young man ran up to us, requesting rhubarb & thai basil soda. We told him apologetically that that was the first to sell out. 
"What?? You mean there's nothing left? Not even one cup? You can't turn the kegs upside down?"

This was definitely on the far end of the distraught customer-spectrum. 

"Sorry man... we were ridiculously busy today."

"It's for this girl I'm trying to get with! She told me she specifically wanted rhubarb and thai basil! What do I do now?  I really like this girl!"

We checked our lines, and nope, we were most definitely out of everything.  

"How about apple & ginger? We dropped off a case of apple and ginger at Palo Santo last night - you can buy one there for her.  And plus there they'll be in bottles, which is probably better than surprising a girl with a cup of warm flat soda."

"awww, but she specifically requested rhubarb and thai basil!"

So now we're curious - how will this story end? 

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Brooklyn Soda Works available soon in a couple more places

We've been talking with Ben in Bierkraft in Park Slope (he very incredibly helpful with directing us towards the correct equipment to start up with), and hopefully in a few weeks he'll be done with his renovation of the interior space and will have a couple of extra lines for kegs.  One of these lines will be used for our cucumber, lime & sea salt!

This is great news - we're big fans of what they do (they have over 1000 varieties of bottled beer and have several taps where they'll refill a growler for you, as well as having great sandwiches).  And I guess since they're in Park Slope which has a high number of toddlers and pregnant ladies... beer doesn't work for everyone...

Also, in other very exciting news - we're doing a trial run this week with Blue Hill restaurant in the West Village for our Apple and Ginger.  We met their Chef de Cuisine, Trevor, a few weeks ago at the Flea.  Since then, he's been really patient with our questions and has been great to work with.  We're keeping our fingers crossed...

Friday, May 7, 2010

Rhubarb time!

It's spring and that means rhubarb

And since it's almost mother's day, I thought I'd say hi to my mum in Hong Kong and dedicate this post to her!
My mum, who normally doesn't have a sweet tooth, is quite a fan of rhubarb crumble, a traditional English dessert (she lived in the UK for years and had me there before we moved back to Hong Kong).  In America's north east they make their appearance in late April and hang about all through summer.


We've been playing around with various rhubarb combinations... we tried rhubarb with ginger and cardamom, but the fragrance of the cardamom didn't quite come through, so the other day we decided to go with star anise, which worked much better.

Unfortunately the weather for this Saturday looks very unstable so we're not sure if we'll be at the Flea (stay tuned for an update), but either way, there'll a rhubarb & ginger soda on the menu soon. I've been talking to Lisa at Phillips Farms in NJ and we're using their rhubarb (which despite not being the traditional red color, is incredibly flavorful).

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Sold out! Go get your apple ginger at Palo Santo

Successful day - very tired, but it was worth it. We sold out of 6 kegs by 3:30pm.

But we're about to deliver 12 bottles over to Palo Santo in Park Slope.  Go get 'em!

Friday, April 30, 2010

Flavors for Saturday! Our tote bag! and nice nod from Sara Jenkins of Porchetta

We're doing a repeat of the basic flavors of last week, except we're switching out the Empire apples for Jonagold apples, and upped the ginger level in the apple and ginger.

So:
Apple and ginger (Jonagold apples from Red Jacket Orchard)
Cucumber, lime & sea salt
Lemon & thyme

Also, thanks to Sara Jenkins (chef of Porchetta the wonderful pork sandwich shop in the East Village) for mentioning us in her NY Magazine Grub Street profile of what she was eating last week:
http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2010/04/porchetta_chef_sara_jenkins.html
Her diet looks pretty great - nice to know we're in good company!

Also, our tote bags have arrived - we'll take some with us to the booth tomorrow. Use it to put your finds from the Flea in:

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Homemade: Brooklyn Event tonight! and a bit of press from Inc.com

Made a spiced ginger beer for tonight's event with Homemade: Brooklyn.  We'll be selling ginger beer during the Kong Magazine's reading event.
Location: 522 Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg

Also, a nice little write up about how Kickstarter helped up achieve our start up costs on Inc.com:

Friday, April 23, 2010

Flavors for Saturday! And flip-top bottles to take home soda!

New flavors this week:
- lemon, thyme and green peppercorn
It's amazing how different thyme from different places can look. The thyme on the above left is from the Union Square Farmer's market, and the one on the right is from a farmers market in NJ.  It seems like the one on the left is younger and lighter tasting (the leaves are bigger), while the bunch on the right has smaller denser leaves.
- Apple with ginger (Empire apples from Red Jacket Orchards in the Fingerlakes Region of NY).  We know its not apple season, but we saw the heap of gorgeous Empire apples at the Farmers Market and we couldn't resist. We had made a green apple & ginger soda before, just using Granny Smith apples, and the result was very tart and refreshing but we wanted to try a different apple this time. Empire apples are a small red apple, that's a good balance between sweet and tart.

And our returning flavor of: cucumber, lime and sea salt!

Plus we'll have some flip-top bottles for sale that we'll fill up for you at the Brooklyn Flea with your soda of choice. A number of people have been asking about taking our carbonated beverages home, and we want to encourage people to bring their own containers and bottles so providing people with flip-top bottles seems to be a good solution.  Let us know what you think!

On another note, we bought a Blichmann beer gun for more efficient bottling from Brooklyn Home Brew (which have been so great resource - they have a wonderful selection of equipment, hops and anything else you'd need for home brewing).

Friday, April 16, 2010

Round 2! and how you can help earthquake relief efforts in Western China

Was going to make a cream soda for Saturday, but I'm not totally satisfied with my recipe yet...  my sister Sarah gave me some helpful tips regarding vanilla beans so hopefully we'll have it down by next week.

In the meantime, since it's been a busy week with Tony away in Mississippi until yesterday, we decided we'd repeat the flavours we did last week - with a couple of major differences:
1. no peeling of the ginger. it's a gargantuan task when it's 10lbs of ginger root
2. no peeling of cucumber - we've been curious whether the skin on the cucumber will add more foam to the soda, and if there will be a noticeable change in taste.

And there was a serious earthquake in Qinghai province, in western China 3 days ago. It's a very remote, mountainous and poor region of China, and while the scope of the damage was nowhere near close to the huge one that rocked Sichuan province in 2008, this nonetheless has affected a population of people that is still in relief supplies and aid, with the death toll over 1000 as of today.

10% of sales on Saturday will be donated to the earthquake relief effort. I'm still deciding which organization to give money to, but it will probably be Red Cross or Mercy Corps.  Google has a very convenient link to relief organizations working in the area if you wish to contribute.


Thursday, April 15, 2010

Photos from first day of Flea! And a bit of press from Offmanhattan and Dirty Hands NY

Sorry for the delay!  Here are photos from our first day at the Flea:
happy & colourful customers

After running around all morning lugging around heavy kegs and coolers, we finally got our booth set up around 10:30am (must remember to get a good hand truck this week)

Wonderful roving band that appeared from seemingly nowhere

this is what happens with the dregs of the soda from the bottom of the keg - we drink it. from our measuring cup apparently.

And thanks to Chermelle from Offmanhattan.com for stopping by and taking a couple of photos for her photo essay on the Flea (you can see her story here)

Special thanks to Liza from dirtyhandsny.com, a multimedia project that focuses on creative, DIY New Yorkers, for profiling us. Her photo-essay which covers all steps from our experiments in the kitchen to our tasting party with friends, is up here: http://dirtyhandsny.com/2010/04/15/brooklyn-soda-works/