This isnt’ the first time that we’ve dabbled in soda-making, but it has definitely been the easiest recipe!

Dave’s made ginger ale, root beer and cream soda before. It’s hard to choose a favorite, but the other three usually involve well, cooking. Haha. Which isn’t a problem in itself. But it’s funny to try something like this cherry soda recipe that is basically “add juice, then bottle.”

Here’s what you need to make a gallon of cherry soda:

– Two quarts of cherry juice
– Two quarts of white grape juice
– Two tablespoons of lemon juice
– 1/4 tablespoon yeast, in 1/4 cup warm water

Special equipment:

– A gallon jug of some kind, with a watertight lid. We have a glass one that wasn’t very expensive, but I think you could use a milk jug if you wanted.
– Four quart-sized flip-top bottles, aka Grolsch bottles. Usually these can be found at your local homebrew store.
– A funnel that fits into the top of said bottles.
– Large bucket
– Bleach

Mix the warm water and yeast in a small cup and allow to become foamy. In the meantime, Wash and then sanitize your bottles using bleach. There’s a great tutorial here.

While the bottles dry, empty the all three juices into your gallon jug, and then add the yeast mixture last. Cap the jug and gently turn over a few times to ensure that the yeast is evenly mixed throughout the soda. Funnel into your bottles and seal, and move to a cool, dark place for about 24 hours.

Normally you would let a soda carbonate for longer than this, but juice is very sugary (even 100% juice) so the yeast is going to have TONS of food to eat. After one day, take the bottles outside (trust me on this ) and pop the top. It will probably bubble up all over the place – but you are trying to release that on purpose. After all of the excess fizz flows out, recap, rinse, and refigerate the soda. Serve cold!