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Makes for an interesting weekend project: How to make homemade OpenCola:

Ingredients

All ingredients listed are in metric units.

Flavoring

• 3.50 ml orange oil
• 1.00 ml lemon oil
• 1.00 ml nutmeg oil
• 1.25 ml cassia oil
• 0.25 ml coriander oil
• 0.25 ml neroli oil
• 2.75 ml lime oil
• 0.25 ml lavender oil
• 10.0 g gum arabic
• 3.00 ml water

Concentrate

• 2.00 tsp (10 ml) flavoring
• 3.50 tsp (17.5 ml) 75% phosphoric acid or citric acid
• 2.28 l water
• 2.36 kg granulated white sugar
• 0.50 tsp (2.5 ml) caffeine (optional. use caution)
• 30.0 ml caramel color

Flavoring

1. Mix together the oils.
2. Add gum arabic and mix completely.
3. Add water and mix well. For this step, use a hand mixer or blender to thoroughly mix together.
4. The flavoring can be made in advance and stored for use later. Place in a sealed glass jar and place in the refrigerator or keep at room temperature.

* When stored, the oils and water will separate. Just mix again before use. When used, the gum arabic will keep things together.

Concentrate

1. Mix 5 ml of flavoring with the phosphoric or citric acid.
2. Add the water and sugar and, while mixing, add caffeine if desired.

* Make sure that the caffeine is completely dissolved before moving on to the next step.
3. Add caramel color and mix completely.

Soda

1. Mix one part of concentrate with five parts water. In other words, however much you use of the concentrate, use five times as much of water.
2. Carbonate the beverage. There are a few ways this can be accomplished:

* Carbonate the beverage yourself
* Mix soda water directly with the concentrate, as described in the previous step
* Use a soda fountain that will combine the concentrate with carbonated water at the tap