Make Your Own "Dirty" Sodas {FREE Printable Recipes}

Let's get down and dirty people! It's nearly midnight and you literally have to finish the last 30 pages of the latest book in the Throne of Glass series. You need a pick me up, but its too late to drive somewhere and you NEED it now. You could just grab a can of pop (I'm saying pop here because I come from Washington State originally, and the word 'soda' still sounds weird to me). Except a can of soda (yep, still is weird) is just, well, kind of boring.

The big new thing - that actually is an old thing that is just coming back - are these soda shops popping up all around now. Near us we have places like Swig, Sodalicious, The Slurp, and Fiiz. A few fast food chains have caught on and you can ask for your drink to be "dirty" or "jacked up". Now it might sound a little "risque," but it's actually just sweet. You can be DIRTY too by adding your own syrup flavoring, fruit purees, and more to make your soda a step above the rest. Plain Sprite, Coke, or Mountain Dew is just a thing of the past. Why not get a Dirty Diet Coke, a Mango Mountain. or Raspberry Dream?

Or better yet, make your own.

Summer Nicole Photo

We recently had our book club retreat (photos and details coming soon) and decided to have our own Dirty Soda Bar. You can create your own Dirty Soda Bar with this free printable menu with six of our favorite flavored soda drinks. Honestly there are hundreds of variations and substitutions on this. Feel free to substitute diet or sugar-free sodas and syrups for the full sugar kinds (we had a combination of both). You can make your own syrups or buy some like we did, like Torani or Stasero. Some grocery stores sell them (I've seen some at Kroger stores, Macey's, and Harmons, though their flavoring choices are limited) or you can find it a place like World Market or Gygi.

FREE Printable Dirty Soda Menu - just right click and save.
I printed it as a 12x18 at Costco and framed it in a cheap frame from Wal-mart.
You could also print it smaller on regular paper.

For the fruit purees, you can use regular fruit and just blend it in a blender. I did that with the mango puree and the raspberry one (I used a strainer to get out the raspberry seeds). Because I was short on time, I ended up using canned pineapple and canned peaches for those purees. I poured out the liquid and pureed them and they still worked great. Cococut cream is TO DIE FOR. You can find it near the canned evaporated milk in your grocery store. It's a little pricey ($3-4 a can), but you only use a couple tablespoons per drink and it is so yummy. If you like yours more creamy (like an Italian soda), just add half and half.

You HAVE to try pebble ice from Sonic!
(Source)

I bought pebble ice from our local Sonic, whisk is the best ice in the whole world, hands down. They sell bags for $2.50 each. You can buy cups, lids, and straws from them too, but they cost $.20 per cup. I ended up getting clear cups/lids and cute straws from Gygi's. Costco sells them too, but unless you are doing this for over a hundred people and don't live near a store like Gygi's, I would just check out a local fast food chain or party supply store. I once even ran into my gas station and asked if they would sell me some and they gave me 50 for free because I was doing it for a school function.

Enjoy making any number of combinations. The main idea is to add an extra little ZIP to your sip! Let me know your favorite concoctions.

XoXo,

www.byrobinking.com