Darcy S. ONeil

Grapefruit Syrup & Soda

Grapefruit soda is one of the most requested topics I've had, and this method is slightly different from the traditional methods out there, but the results are really good. This formula has a stronger flavour than most commercial versions, mostly thanks to the grapefruit mercaptan, and if you find anything too strong (flavour, acidity, etc.), you can easily cut the amounts back. As usual here, ...

Week Off: Gone Canoeing

This week I will be away, deep in the woods of Algonquin Park, so if you have any questions, I will answer them when I get back to civilization.

I do have some topics in the queue, and here is the short list of ones that are presently in the works:

1. Grapefruit Soda using the emulsion technique, along with flavour compounds

2. How to Make Caramel Type IV for colouring and emu...

DIY Diet Cola

Making a diet cola is just as easy as making a regular cola. I've created a low calorie syrup-base with the acids and other components combined. It is similar to the Zero Calorie Simple Syrup, except this one is closer to 1:1 and not the 2:1 sweetness of the zero calorie version. This one also incorporates some sugar, as it can give a quick hit of sweetness, but we can still keep the calorie co...

How to Make Cola Formula Sheet

Cola is a wildly popular flavour. Worldwide, cola-flavoured beverages account for approximately 60% of the total carbonated soda drinks market, which is dominated by Coca-Cola and Pepsi. However, there are many regional cola products, such as Thumbs Up and Afri Cola. If you look at all commercial packaged beverages, cola may account for up to 10% of all drinks consumed worldwide.

With su...

Caramel as an Emulsifier

This video can change the way you develop drinks, especially if you want a non-alcoholic option that will emulsify hard-to-work-with essential oils. It may even be an option to develop cannabis type drinks where solubility is an issue. And it is the proper way to make a cola recipe; in fact, Pepsi patented this method back in the 1960s and is still used today. If you look at a can of Pepsi or C...

Cola Flavour: Part One

Below you will find a document dump on a bunch of things cola-related. There are various formulas I've found in books, plus a bunch of articles on cocaine in cola, specifically Coca-Cola, though many other companies use cocaine in their beverages, it was good for sales and no laws were preventing it. If you've ever heard that Coca-Cola denies cocaine was in their soda, this should convince you ...

Book: The Bottlers' Formulary (1910)

When it comes to a book on commercial soda production, The Bottlers' Formulary is one of the best, even though it was published in 1910. If you look at soda today, you still drink the same things people did in the early 1900s. Colas, lemon and citrus sodas, ginger ale, root beer and cream soda. This book covers all of those flavours and more.

Though the techniques are over a century old,...

What is a Flavour?

Having published the Dr Pepper recipe, it has generated a lot of questions about the ingredients, specifically the flavour compounds (esters, aldehydes, etc.) used in the formula. Most of the previous speculation on Dr Pepper recipe involved common fruit and spices (almond, cherry, lemon, vanilla, plums, etc), and the belief that the Dr Pepper company seemed to run the world's largest juicer. T...

Dr Pepper Formula Sheet

Here is the Dr Pepper formula sheet. To work with the formula, you will also need the Cherry Flavour formula, attached here as well. To make the Dr Pepper syrup, follow the Cherry flavour and substitute the Dr Pepper (Cherry Oil #2).

As usual, if you have questions, let me know.

Poll: Future Direction 2025

The Dr Pepper video is coming shortly; I didn't want to post on the Easter holiday as engagement is relatively low. There is an early preview of the Dr Pepper formula sheet available to the Drink Maker and Benefactor levels, but once the video is published, it will be available to all paying members.

The content I make is for you because this content/videos are not financially feasible wi...

The 23 Flavours of Dr Pepper

This is part one of the exploration of a formula I found that details something close to Dr Pepper in flavour and has roughly 23 flavour ingredients. In this video, I just compare the 23 flavour ingredients to those speculated online about what Dr Pepper tastes like.

Next week will be the formulation and tasting video. And the previous video on Cherry Soda has aged long enough that it ha...

Cherry Flavour Formula Sheet

First, this formula has a fantastic cherry flavour and I was impressed how well it came out. If you like cherry flavours, this is a good one, and if you want an interesting twist, and like tonic water, simply add 60 mL (2 oz) of the syrup to 300 mL (10 oz) of tonic water instead of plain soda water.

This is the start of the Dr Pepper journey, but to understand why cherry soda has an almon...

How to Make an Ester

Esters make up a significant proportion of flavour compounds, so understanding what they are and how they are made will help you be a better flavourist.

An esterification reaction is literally just binding two compounds together, an alcohol and an organic acid (carboxylic acid). Individually, the alcohol and acid often smell terrible, but when connected together, they smell fantastic, of...

Artificial Vanilla Extract

Understanding Vanilla: Natural vs. Artificial

While natural vanilla is the second most expensive spice in the world, with Grade A pods costing around $50 per 100g, often more, artificial vanilla extract offers a cost-effective alternative without compromising quality. Natural vanilla beans contain 1.2% to 2.5% vanillin content, which represents 65% to 85% of the vanilla bean flavour. At...

Rum+Popcorn+Vanilla=Cake Flavour

Though we often think the flavour of commercial cake mixes or cake icing is just vanilla, it is, in fact, a modification of vanilla. The two compounds that are mixed with vanilla to give this unique taste are Rum Ether and Popcorn Pyrazine (2-Acetyl Pyrazine). The combination works better than plain vanilla.

When formulating this, you want the vanilla notes to be present, so we will use ...

Dr. Pepper Formula Anyone?

While doing some research, I may have stumbled across a formula for Dr. Pepper, though there is no mention of Pepper in the formula name. Now, I can't be 100% sure until I make the formula and test it, but looking at the ingredients, it fits the flavour profile. Also, there just happens to be 23 ingredients, which is an often-stated reference to the recipe/formula.

This has been a much-re...

Decoding Blueberry Flavour

If you asked someone to describe blueberry flavour, I suspect most people would have a hard time describing it beyond the standard "fruity" descriptor. In reality, blueberry is a simple flavour and can be made with just two ingredients, linalool and cis-3-hexanol (leaf alcohol) . The link below will lead you to a patent from 1977 that details this simple binary flavour, though the inventor does...

Strawberry Flavour Formula

Strawberry is a fantastic flavour, and it can be replicated fairly well. However, it is more complex than something like banana or bubble gum. Most publicly available formulas use anywhere between 8 and 20 compounds to develop the flavour, and the 12 formulas below provide a good example of the different compounds used to make a strawberry flavour.

My goal here is to give you the tools to...

Banana Flavour Formulas

A basic banana flavour is one of the most straightforward compound flavours to make and learn from. At its core, it is made from just two ingredients: isoamyl acetate and ethyl butyrate. It is so simple that anyone can make it, but it has a long history in North America, as this flavour was available before bananas became a common item of commerce. This history means the flavour can tap into th...

Bubble Gum Flavour Formula

The flavour of bubble gum is unique and isn't found in nature, though it is made from all-natural compounds. In this video, the goal is to demonstrate the bubble gum flavour but also to show you how easy it is to create unique flavours by simply combining a few compounds that don't occur in the same plants. It is an excellent recipe to experiment with and one you really can't mess up.

Bu...

2025-01-19 17:51:14 +0000 UTC View Post

Turning Perfume Accords into Flavours (Preview)

Flavours can be fun to play around with, but there are infinite combinations, so where do you start? Well, any type of experimenting is good, as that is how you will learn to work with flavour compounds. In this case, I stumbled across this Red Bull Perfume Accord demo from Frat...

Flavour Drops & Calculator | Patreon Exclusive

The preferred working unit of bartenders for dosing small amounts of flavour—like bitters—is the "drop" or "dash," which is helpful in a fast-paced working environment. Can we take this idea and make it work for any type of flavour? Yes we can!

With a few simple steps, we can take the idea of a drop and use any professional flavour compound or combination of compounds and dose that at...

How to Use Preformulated Flavours (Ad Free)

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 ca...

Alternatives to Alcohol for Flavour Development

For a number of reasons, mostly availability, many people are looking for alternatives to alcohol for flavour development and diluting essential oils. This video and the content below will guide you on some of the alternatives.

These alternative solvents are available through most flavour and perfum...

Formula Sheet: Coconut Flavour

Here is the PDF formula for the Coconut Flavour. I've been running a bit behind on things, but this formula contains some adjustments from the video, and a list of optional ingredients can help you dial in a coconut flavour. There is also the starting point for a toasted coconut flavour using a caramel ingredient called methyl cyclopentenolone (Cyclotene). But as with all flavour formulas, the...

Suppliers List 2024 (Update)

Finding good suppliers can be hard, but here is an updated worldwide list of suppliers of flavour compounds. I will be doing more videos using these types of compounds as it offers many unique opportunities for creating interesting flavours. As you may have noticed, I've been making videos on how to work and understand them. I'm laying the groundwork for where we are going.

It should be n...

Smelling Aroma Compounds (Ad Free)

When you first use professional aroma compounds, you may find that some may smell almost like nothing. This is common because our brains aren't tuned into these specific compounds, but we can train our brains to detect them better.

The technique involves retronasal exhalation, basically breathing the aroma compound in through your mouth and then exhaling through your nose. I've broken th...

How to Make a Cool Drink (Ad Free)

When making a drink, most people focus on flavour, but you can also use ingredients that provide a sensation, like cooling compounds. The sensation of "cool" is similar to that of mint or menthol, but these specific compounds, like WS-23 or WS-3 "Koolada," provide that cooling sensation without any harsh or bitter flavours. This allows you to enhance your drinks without affecting the flavour. 2024-08-25 16:30:09 +0000 UTC View Post

Discord Server for Art of Drink

You have spoken, so I have set up the Discord server at the above link. Anyone can join and participate in the general chat, though paid Patreon memberships have access to Patreon-only channels. I will jump into the Discord chat to answer questions, though you can still post questions here in the comments, chat or direct message. I'm hoping that as more people gain experience with making flavou...

Discord Server Interest?

As this community grows I need better ways to interact with everyone, plus sharing information and resources, so a quick poll to gauge some interest in how you want this community to grow.

Who is interested in joining an Art of Drink Discord server? I've had people ask before, but now might be the time to do it. The Patreon chat system isn't great, but I know little about Discord, though...