Claire Phoenix is FoodBev Media managing editor – magazines. This is a personal blog and views expressed are her own.
The new trend to dirty soda all stems from the popular trend in dirty martinis and the move to mixing drinks yourself – creating the perfect taste explosion for your taste buds.
It really just means making a cloudy drink from an originally clear or almost clear branded soda. Say adding lime or apple juice to Diet Coke, or coconut water to 7UP. It has been aided and abetted by the growth in tiny pocket-size flavoured water enhancers and the machines such as Coca-Cola’s Freestyle Fountain Soda, PepsiCo’s new Drinkfinity and their inspired Spire, designed for use in bars and restaurants. But this is something people want to do at home. And although alcoholic cocktails have been the biggest news in bars with mixologist innovations becoming ever more outrageous, it is the non-alcoholic variants that have the greatest future with a definitive trend in this direction.
The major players shouldn’t worry because this trend is based on the best selling sodas – what consumers are looking for though is to add to these with high calibre additions they already have in the store cupboard or that are easily available in the supermarket – nothing synthetic and all natural whenever possible.
Here are a few ideas from the Foodbev team. Some might make you squirm but others may make your think “that could work”; it’s all about tracking your personal taste profile:
The world of sodas is changing and the best thing is that the flavour direction is all up to you.
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