Description
You can make your own grape soda at home with just 5 ingredients and no expensive equipment. It has less sugar than store-bought, with no artificial sweeteners, colors, or additives!
Ingredients
- 2 cups red grapes
- 1/4 cup blueberries
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- Juice and zest of 1 lemon
- Sparkling water
Instructions
- To a small bowl, add the sugar and the zest of one lemon. Use your fingers to massage the zest into the sugar, until no wet clumps of zest remain.
- To a small saucepan over medium low heat, add the grapes, blueberries, lemon juice, and the lemon sugar. Cook for 15-20 minutes, mashing the fruit occasionally, until you're left with a wine-colored mash of grape skins and liquid.
- Strain out the solids and move the syrup to the refrigerator to cool to room temperature.
- Once the syrup is cooled, add 2-4 tablespoons of the syrup to an ice-filled glass, then top with sparkling water. Stir, and enjoy!
Notes
Storage: Kept in a jar or airtight pump-style container, this syrup will last a month or so in the fridge.
Soda ratio: We usually use 1/4 - 1/3 cup of syrup per cup of sparkling water, but you might find you like it stronger or more diluted, depending on your tastes.
We used red grapes in this recipe, but concord grapes (if you can find them) will provide a more classic grape soda-like flavor.
Mash the grapes while cooking. After about 5-7 minutes in the saucepan, the grapes should have softened a bit and you can use a wooden spoon, muddler, or other implement to mash them up a bit.
Use low/medium low heat. You just want to simmer the grapes gently. It's OK if there's some light bubbling, but you want to avoid the whole thing bubbling over and getting sugar all over your stovetop.
Let the syrup cool before adding it to containers or using it in your homemade sodas.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Category: Beverage
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1/4 cup
- Calories: 134
- Sugar: 30.5 g
- Sodium: 2.1 mg
- Fat: 0.2 g
- Carbohydrates: 35.3 g
- Fiber: 1 g
- Protein: 0.6 g