I saw Eben Freeman is doing a smoked Coca Cola for one of his cocktails. I saw that the NY Times had a cheater recipe calling for liquid smoke (ughh), and I'd really like to avoid that route. Any ideas on how to smoke coke? Wait, that just showed up on the net. I bet Marion Berry requests access to our boards now, but I digress. I'm thinking that if I just put coke in a smoker, all I will get is warm, flat coke. Thoughts? Oh, one other caveat. I don't really want to use coke syrup. In a perfect world, I'd use Mexican coke.

Thats really not what I'm looking for, thanks though.

Craig,

My aversion is for two reasons. One, I think it lacks authentic flavor. For some reason, I can instantly tell when something contains liquid smoke. It has a chemical tast to me. And two, thats the easy way. If someone is actually smoking coca cola, I want to figure out how to do it. The little bit of digging that I've done makes me think that they are actually smoking coca cola syrup, so I may have to make a trip to costco soon.

Have you seen my recipe for Clementine Bitters?

I'll admit I haven't had a Coke for years, but the first time I tried these bitters combined with syrup and
soda the first thing that came to mind was Cola...

Clementine Bitters

Peel of 3 Clementines (and leaves if you've got 'em), sliced thin
Zest of 2 medium oranges

5 stick Mexican Cinnamon
1 whole clove
1/8 cup Dried Orange Peel
1/8 cup Chamomile
1/8 cup Gentian Root
4 Bay Leaves
2 Cups Vodka
2 cups rye
1 cup water

2 TBSP Blackstrap Molasses

Crush all dry ingredients in a pestle. Steep the zest in the rye and the dry ingredients in the vodka for two weeks, shaking occasionally. Strain through cheesecloth, combine liquids and reserve spices. Bring water to boil, pour on the spices, and steep overnight. Strain spicy water. Combine spicy water with flavored alcohol and add blackstrap.

Age for 2 more weeks, rack or pour off, strain through coffee filter into sterilized containers.

Hmm, rather than smoke coca cola, maybe I should smoke rum instead? I wonder if it would take, or if I should fat wash it in with some ghee?

That Clementine Bitters sounds awesome thanks for the post.

I have been using smoked simple in just about everything that calls for the pink. My favorite is the pink lady, the proportions have to skewed abit. yum.

I'm going to attempt to smoke my base alcohol in my smoker over the weekend. I think I'll put it in a pyrex pie plate at the top of my smoking racks to ensure that it has enough surface area to absorb some of the smoke. I'm also smoking some salt and doing a smoked simple this weekend, just to see my results.

I think you can cold smoke down to 80 degrees. My smoker is a hot smoker, but it wouldn't be hard to McGyver it into a cold smoker with some ingenuity. I'm debating two things. One is cold smoking it, but the other is to use as little smoking material as possible and keep it really wet, so that it smolders rather than cooks anything. I may indeed be looking at a loss due to evaportation, but thats probably the first route I'll take before moving to cold smoking. Daniel is doing a smoked simple here at the TearDrop thats really fantastic and is just what I've been looking for with my bacon bourbon. The weather is crappy yet again up here, ok, not THAT crappy but enough so that I don't want to make regular trips outside today, so we'll see what the weather holds for tomorrow.

Hey Lance, I just had an idea how to make your own liquid smoke, decide on your own liquid smoke recipes (Pear wood? Basil twigs? Yum!) and stir the liquid into the cola. Which would keep the cola more fresh tasting since heat would break the sugars down a little.

Another thing you can try is to pretend your McGuyver and take cheese cloth and a pie tin.

Make a bag of ice out of cheese cloth and attach it to the vent side of your webber (so the smoke is forced past the ice) and have the pie tin under the bag to catch the water.

The coals and the smoking chips are placed on the opposite side of the ice and tin to minimize heat.

When the smoke clears, the ice should be melted. The cheese cloth should be brown with smoke flavor. Make a tea with it and maybe reduce it to maximize flavor. Don't just stick to wood either. I garden and have 'left overs' from the herbs that die off every year. I discovered the beauty of smoking the dried twigs of basil plants. Tea has been a smoking staple at my house for years too. Jasmine and Oolong are my favs. I think lavendar will be happening this year and I have a huge Karry plant that tastes like a light fruity curry. I'm a total sucker for sage too.

Can my wife and I come over for Cachaca and smoked cokes? I'll bring the pork.

On the pre manufactured liquid smoke? It's hickory. Personally, I just never really dug hickory too much.

Blair, We smoke the demerera first in a hotel pan in a commercial smoker w/ cherry chips, then we turn that into a rich simple syrup (2:1)

Lance, I'm picking up a cold smoking gun (tiny little thing, but perfect for these kinds of crazy ventures. It should be here soon, so you can come down & check it out when I have it.