Recipe 17: Sanguinella (Blood Orange)

So apparently I haven't posted a recipe in a while.  I've been playing with citrus juices lately, and I've been close to posting a couple of tasty recipes, but they're not quite complete yet.  I'll post this one because I'm satisfied with the way the syrup turned out.  I'm going to see if I can get some citric acid to adjust the syrup, and make it super tasty.

I found some blood oranges at Wal-Mart of all places, and I couldn't resist picking up a bag.  It's been a while since I had a good sanguinella, though if I remember right, San Pellegrino has a good one.  Update: Yes, I found some in cans at Wegman's, I'll have to add that to the taste test mentioned below.

So here we have one orange juiced and three more ready to go.  I peeled these, sectioned them and put them in a blender after removing as much pith as I could.  That may or may not have been a good idea.  That bitter pith flavor still comes through a little bit, perhaps it's from the pulp.  Makes you feel like you're eating a fresh orange, though, so if that's what you're going for, then great!

From these three oranges, I ended up with about 1 cup of juice.  I was a little shy of the 1 cup mark, so I made up the difference with lemon juice to add some extra tartness. 

After squeezing the juice through a clean juicer bag to separate out the pulp, I added that to some invert sugar syrup scaled for a gallon of finished soda.  (Invert Sugar Recipe, thanks to Chef Eddy).  Add the juice to the hot syurp to kill any natural yeasts and then add that to your carbonated water.  Done.

1 cup Blood Orange Juice mixed with Lemon Juice for added tartness, ratio depends on desired tartness
2 cups sugar, inverted

Top up to 1 gallon with carbonated water.

I'm fairly happy with how this turned out, it could have used the citric acid that I wanted to add, but didn't.  I have some Blood Orange Monin syrup to compare it to, and I'm waiting for the right time to do a side by side taste test.

 When I bottled this, I was very impressed at first with the color of the two syrups.  Pardon the blurry photo, but right is my syrup and left is Monin's syrup.  Monin's is a little darker, but not by much. 

 Here's a clearer photo, monin is the bottle at left and the one with the funnel behind.












 Once filled the Monin was still a bit darker, not to mention clearer than mine.  Those natural colors do dilute quite readily, apparently. 
As far as taste goes, I have yet to really taste them side by side.  I have to get my hands on the San Pellegrino.  But it does seem like the Monin has a "brighter" orange flavor.  Mine is a bit more "dull" and ever so slightly bitter, like biting into an actual orange, not just sipping the juice.  Still pretty good if you like oranges. 

Update: It's taken me so long to post this, I'm not sure that you can still get blood oranges in the store anymore, they're a bit out of season.  But theoretically, this recipe should work well with any citrus juices.  I have some meyer lemons that are aching to be used in a beverage that I'm planning on trying out rather soon.  We'll see if the recipe still holds up there.

The Artisan Soda Workshop by Andrea Lynn

Edit: For those of you returning here, the release date for this has been changed from May 29th to July 10th.  The Kindle edition is apparently already available, but physical book in hand is not.

I figured it was about time to post something.  There are a number of recipes that I've been working on, but I want to polish them up before posting.  So in the meantime, I also wanted to take a minute to let people know that in searching for homemade soda recipes, you're not alone.  I'm very much a DIY'er, and it seems it's common among those of my generation.  If you're reading this, you're probably part of that generation.  I've seen a steady increase in traffic, and I'd like to thank the internet community for taking an interest in what I have to share!  I associate the increased interest in homemade soda with what Wired Magazine calls the Next Industrial Revolution which is a really cool article if you have the time to make it through it.  Who knew cars could be crowdsourced?  There seems to be a constant and welcome increase in information available on homemade soda.  With the release of Andrew Schloss's Homemade Soda book last year (which I reviewed here, excellent book by the way) my library for homemade soda books doubled. 
It seems that there's more to come with Andrea Lynn's The Artisan Soda Workshop.

This doesn't become available until the end of May, but you can be sure that I'm going to get my hands on a copy to add to my library.  When I do, I'll post a full review for all folks interested.  It promises some very interesting recipes, for sure.  Rhubarb Basil sounds interesting, I'm not sure it would be something I'd consumer regularly.  Sea Salt Lime sounds scary, I've tried salting my butterscotch/butterbeer recipes and that never ends well.  Prickly Pear and Plum Lemon sound really tasty!  Lemon-Thyme sounds like it's a maybe.  As in, this may be the drink you never knew you loved.  But maybe not.  It looks like I'm going to have to wait until May to find out.  I'm definitely stoked, though. 

So, to recap, here's the dedicated soda books that I know of:

1998 Stephen Cresswell's Homemade Root Beer, Soda & Pop  Classic, great basis for making soda.
2010 Darcy O'Neil's Fix the Pumps More of a history, as I understand.  Still need to get my hands on this.
2011 Andrew Schloss's Homemade Soda Lots of great recips, highly recommended.
2012 Andrea Lynn's The Artisan Soda Workshop We'll see how it ranks come May 29th.

Hmmm, I see a trend.  What will 2013 hold I wonder?  If these Artisan recipes from Lynn are any indication, I think we'll be seeing some wild combinations soon.  That said, any ideas for great, wild recipes posted in the comment box will recieve some serious consideration.