Homemade Drinks

It might be fun to try the trendy seasonal beverage at your local coffee shop, but have you ever thought about making your own? Homemade drinks are a fun way to bring the café to your house and try out being the barista for a change. 

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There are lots of types of drinks you can try concocting at home. First, you can get into making your own sodas. The easiest way to begin making sodas is to mix things like fruit juice, tea, fruit preserves, syrups, and herbs with existing seltzer water. You can test out mixtures of your favorite flavors on your own, or you can try out an existing soda recipe from the Food Network. 

If you want to take your homemade soda game a step further, you can go as far as carbonating the water yourself. While most store-bought soda has carbonation pumped in, you can make soda at home by mixing water with yeast and letting it ferment for a few days. For full instructions, check out this guide from the Seed to Pantry School. 

And, if you want to make these drinks for a party, feel free to add some alcohol in as well. While bartending is a completely different disciplineskill, anyone can add a shot of their favorite liquor to what they are drinking.

There are endless things to experiment with when making your own drinks. You can experiment with the ways you serve the drink, using different colors and shapes of glassware to enhance the drinking experience. Traditional clear glassware, for example, accentuates the color and texture of a beverage for the drinker. Wide-mouthed glasses allow for better aeration of complex scents, but narrow glasses keep the aroma concentrated.

You can also surprise beverage drinkers by mixing edible delicacies into their beverages. Many people add dried fruit or herbs to beverages, both as a garnish and an enhancement of the drink's flavor profile. If you are making a sweet, cozy drink, try adding a cookie or a graham cracker. Maybe you want to play around with asian-inspired drinks, and boba pearls may be your item of choice. 

The world is truly your oyster when it comes to making homemade drinks – just start mixing!