Reinventing the wheel is not a good use of your time, so creating a common flavour, like strawberry, peach, or watermelon, from scratch isn't necessary, as many preformulated options are available. Most flavour houses have been developing these flavours for decades, tweaking them every few years to improve them. They are an excellent starting point for working with professional flavours. You can even use them as a base flavour and then add other compounds to put your own unique twist on them.
The key issue is understanding how to use them and how to dose them at the appropriate level. This also leads us to use a "basic taster," which can help you learn how to taste these flavours at different levels. The basic standard is an industry term and it is just a 10% sugar solution that you add the flavour and then taste. I've tweaked this in the above video to add a touch of acidity, as I find it helps add a touch of realness to the flavours, as almost every drink is, on some level, acidic.
This video is another step into formulating your own flavours, which I'll be doing a lot of videos on shortly. So consider this one, and the basic taster formula, important content for future videos.
Here is a list of professional flavours from Perfumers Apprentice: https://shop.perfumersapprentice.com/c-54-professional-flavors.aspx
100 g Sugar
Add water to make 1000 g or 1L
Take 100 mL of Taster and add 1 to 2 drops of flavour, mix thoroughly
1 drop in 100 mL is roughly 25 to 60 mg in 100 mL or 250 to 600 ppm, which is the standard starting point for premade flavours in propylene glycol.
15.0 g Citric Acid
12.0 g Sodium Citrate
Bring to 100 mL
1 mL in 100 mL of basic taster is 0.15 g and 0.12 g of citric acid and sodium citrate, or roughly 0.15% acid content, which is relatively low compared to natural fruit, but since the basic taster typically does not contain acid, this small amount can help with the flavour but also provide a slightly longer shelf life if you want to taste the samples over a week or two
Darcy S. O'Neil
2025-06-30 13:29:59 +0000 UTCRik Gardner
2025-06-29 12:38:46 +0000 UTCDarcy S. O'Neil
2025-03-18 23:40:04 +0000 UTCBrent Barcelona
2025-03-04 08:19:38 +0000 UTC