Cool fizz
Summertime and the drinking is easy -- as more restaurants hand craft their own sodas
July 07, 2011|By Nancy Maes, Special to the Tribune
More restaurants are creating their own sodas — just in time for summer sipping
The wave of artisanal, small-batch, handcrafted foods made with care and a creative touch has now trickled down to soft drinks. The ripple effect can be seen in unique house-made carbonated sodas in upscale restaurants, burger spots and gelato parlors.
These offerings add a twist to traditional soft drinks or offer innovative flavors. Expect fresh, natural ingredients that are often seasonal, and cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup.
Their fizz and flavor can be enjoyed as an alternative to a cocktail, as a complement to a meal, as a dessert or a healthy nightcap.
Michael McDonald, the executive chef at one sixtyblue (1400 W. Randolph St., 312-850-0303) started making sodas from scratch by chance. He was used to drinking a lot of water because it gets so hot in the restaurant's kitchen, but he got bored with H20 and added some lime to it. Then he realized that he preferred sparkling water, which was much more refreshing, so he added the citrus to the effervescent beverage.
"Then a light bulb went off," McDonald said. "If lime is so refreshing, what if I added watermelon or strawberry puree. When I worked in Mexico, before our shift one of the guys would always grab some fruit, puree it and make a big batch of a fruit-flavored beverage."
Then he was hit by another idea. "Since we are chefs, I thought let's do house-made sodas seasonally," he says. So in January the restaurant started offering a pineapple soda and one made with Cara Cara oranges, red navel oranges known for their sweet complex notes of cherry, rose petal and blackberry. McDonald added vanilla to give the orange soda a touch of creaminess. It has been so successful that it is a staple on the menu.
One of the warm-weather sodas combines rhubarb and strawberry with mint.
"We muddle the mint, which breaks out some of the oils and releases them into the water," McDonald said.
A blackberry soda with ginger and lime was inspired when the pastry chef made a blackberry compote and had blackberry juice left over.
"We're always thinking about how we can use our leftovers," McDonald said, "and we added ginger juice that explodes with flavor and is healthy for you."
It turns out that McDonald had tapped into a national trend of house-made sodas. Eli Boyer, general manager of DMK Burger Bar (2954 N. Sheffield Ave., 773-360-8686), says that before the eatery opened, he and partners Michael Kornick and David Morton traveled throughout the U.S. to look at spots similar to their concept. They discovered that the best ones were creating their own sodas that were lighter and more refreshing than the traditional carbonated beverages such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi.
"We decided to focus on fruit flavors and use pure cane sugar," Boyer said. The sodas, made with fruit syrup and filtered soda water on tap, include a lime, a cherry that Boyer says tastes like "a snow cone in a glass," and an orange soda made with blood oranges.
"The oranges have an intense, in-your-face bright flavor and they're sweet but not too sweet, because there's a tartness to them," Boyer said. "Some people like to combine two flavors, like cherry and lime, together and some mix all three and call it a suicide."
At Terzo Piano (Art Institute of Chicago, 159 E. Monroe St., 312-443-8650) house-made sodas were a natural extension of the philosophy of the restaurant's menu.
"We like to focus as much as possible on local, organic, sustainable foods, and we even followed that concept in our bar and beverage program," beverage manager Ryan Paykert said. "We found a lot of beers and spirits that matched that initiative, but at the time there were no local sodas."
Paykert said he and pastry chef Megan Neubeck are sometimes inspired by a puree or sauce used for a dessert.
The changing array of all-natural seasonal sodas runs the gamut from a carrot and caramel one garnished with a melon skewer to a cranberry fennel, and a pomegranate thyme. Paykert said: "We put pomegranate and thyme together because they create a naturally sweet aroma, but the flavor of the Concord grape soda is so remarkable, the color so beautiful that an herb would distract from it."
The fennel lemon soda is created by cooking a finely shaved fennel bulb with a bit of syrup until it's tender. It is then pureed, mixed with soda water and topped off with fresh squeezed lemon. Paykert says it pairs well with a chorizo, roasted fennel and onion flatbread.
"You can get the flavor of the fennel in two different ways," he said. "You have the earthiness of the root when it is roasted and the delicate, subtle flavors of the natural sugars when you poach it."
Paykert said the summer menu will offer sodas inspired by watermelon and cantaloupe from farmers markets.
The beverages at Terzo Piano are served in a low-ball glass for a reason.
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