Friday, February 10, 2006

To Drink a Soda...A Tutorial.

I have wanted to do a tutorial of this sort for a long time. I am hoping this will prove to be helpful to those of you that enjoy consumption of "soft drinks", "soda pop", or simply "soda" as we like to call it around here. Failure to follow these instructions will mean that you will not be getting the most out of the hard earned money that you spend for sodas. The following will work with any carbonated beverage. Well, here goes:

Step 1. Start with your favorite soda. (in this example, I used a "black cherry/vanilla Coke"



2. Make sure that the soda is "ice cold". (This is important)
3. Make sure that the glass is also "ice cold" (this is even more important) the thing we are trying to accomplish here is minimal meltage of ice (this dilutes the soda) and minimal foaming when pouring (this flattens the soda).
Another hint: Do not use a hard plastic cup. Any soda generally tastes better out of a chilled glass full of ice. Proper chilling of the glass is acheived by filling the glass with ice AND water. Let stand for approx. 1-2 minutes. See pic below.



4. Pour the water out of the glass.



5. Slowly pour the soda into the chilled glass of ice. Note the minimal amount of foaming. That is a sign that the soda and glass of ice were chilled properly. Always remember, the less foaming during pouring of the soda the better it will taste!



6. Now you are ready to consume the soda and get the best possible taste!



Ahh....wow this is good!

Other helpful tips:
**A McDonalds/Wendys/Burger King/ etc. cup with straw is actually better than using a chilled glass with ice. Also, rinsing the ice is not necessary when using the flaked ice from a commercial ice machine.
** Save the empty cans for Sister Barbara. Scrap aluminum brings big bucks right now and she needs the money to fund merit shop at school!


Some of my favorite sodas are:
1. Code Red Mountain Dew. I like it better than regular M.Dew.
2. Coke.
3. Coke with lime.
4. Black Cherry/Vanilla Coke.
5. Dr. Pepper.

I don't really care for Pepsi. It tastes too flat compared to Coke.

7 comments:

Glen Zehr said...

How cool.....
I thought you were big on pouring the soda into the cup with the cup slanted. Ben claims this minimizes the amount of fizzing. Do you agree with him on this point or have you moved beyond that with some of the other steps you mentioned?

Rob said...

The slant of the glass is not as important and the glass being chilled and the ice rinsed.

Anonymous said...

The tilting of the glass is simply to prevent the soda from being overly disturbed as it is being poured. It could be argued that it is more important for the soda to actually hit the ice first rather than hit the side of the glass because the glass probably isn't as cold as the ice. My theory is that any abrupt change of temperature causes the excessive fizzing Just some thoughts I was having...

Anonymous said...

One other thing, my favorite vessel for sodas is a styrofoam cup. Their benefit is insulation and because of that they don't sweat very much. I never really liked the wax cups because I think they taste waxy and they sweat like mad.

This soda drinking thing is a science...

Rob said...

Styro cups are pretty good as long as the ice in them has been rinsed properly. The best ice to use in a styro cup is the flaked type which is actually the best all around ice anyway.
We have not discussed the 2 liter topic yet either. My theory is that 2 liters need to be consumed within 24hrs after they are opened. Otherwise, they become too flat to drink. After opening a 2 liter, handeling becomes critical. DO NOT shake or bump a 2 liter after it is opened. It dramatically hastens the flattening process of the soda. Also keep the cap on the 2 liter as much as possible.

Ben and Juanita said...

Some people believe squeezing the bottle to expel all the air in the bottle before screwing the lid on helps. I have to laugh at this because it just doesn't make sense. It only makes it worse because it creates a slight vacuum. Of course, this is just my theory and I could be way off the wall...but I think it makes sense ....doesn't it?

Rob said...

I agree that it makes it worse. The pressure inside helps to retain the carbonation thus keeping the soda from tasting flat.