The Cheekiest of Cheeky Vimtos
Jimmy | March 25, 2008I was drinking a bottle of tasty Vimto the other day, when the thought suddenly struck me that Vimto syrup would be an excellent basis for a fruity wash - it’s high in sugar, contains lots of interesting fruit flavourings, even some barley malt and spices.
I did some research online, but I couldn’t find anyone else who had done anything similar. This set off warning bells in my mind, surely someone else had thought along the same lines? I did find one post where someone mentioned that a friend had made delicious wine from Vimto (and Ribena!) but with no further details. Being a bit silly with this kind of thing, I decided it should be my mission to make Vimto brandy!
Of course, ideas such as this one rarely wait patiently in your brain, so I dashed off to the late shop and bought myself a bottle of Vimto cordial (original - not the no added sugar one, obviously!). I did some quick (i.e. half-arsed) calculations, and decided that 500ml of Vimto needs 250ml of water adding to it to bring it to the correct sugar levels for a decent fermentation. 100ml of syrup contains 33g of sugar, so I figured 50ml of water would dilute it to be more like 24.5g per 100ml. Correct? I don’t know, but it seemed to make sense at the time.
I put this heady brew into an empty, sterile 2 litre pop bottle, threw in a teaspoon of bakers yeast, and sellotaped an airlock to the top of the bottle. I shook it up well to get plenty of oxygen in, and then left it overnight to get going. In the morning…. nothing. No foam on the top, no bubbling, not a sausage. I figured that perhaps I needed to activate the yeast first, so I prepared another batch of yeast - this time I used a tablespoon, activated for 15 minutes in a glass jug which made a large amount of foam showing that the yeast was working. The result? Nothing.
Clearly something was amiss here, so I took a closer look at the ingredients list for Vimto. There are two preservatives listed which I suspect may be stopping the fermentation process. The first is Sodium Benzoate, or E211. I did some digging and found that if the pH is lower than 5, this will reduce fermentation of glucose by 95% - sounds pretty bad for our purposes. Fruit juices such as apple are generally around the 3.5 pH mark, meaning that Vimto is probably well and truly in the E211 zone.
Worse is the Potassium Sorbate - this stuff apparently stops yeast from multiplying. Any yeast which is already present can convert glucose to alcohol, but when it dies off there will be no new yeast to replace it. Not good. One of the applications for Potassium Sorbate is actually for killing off yeast in wine making before bottling, so it seems it’s perfect for stopping me making cheeky Vimto. Curses.
I don’t want to give up though, so I’ve emailed the makers of Vimto (Nichols plc) and asked them if they have any ideas - I know it’s unlikely, but you never know! Other than that, I have a couple of theories of my own. Firstly, I could try raising the pH of the solution to above 5 in order to stop the Sodium Benzoate having an effect. Secondly, I read that activated carbon is good at removing Benzine-related materials from a solution, which I would imagine includes Sodium Benzoate. I’m loathe to do this one though, as it will doubtless remove some of the flavour as well - it may come in handy as a last resort though. My other idea is that if Potassium Sorbate doesn’t affect living yeast, I might simply be able to throw a large amount of yeast into the mix - crude, but hopefully effective.
So then, my plan is to salt up the solution to raise the pH, chuck a load of yeast in to get some fermentation going, and see what’s what. If that fails, carbon filter it all and try again. If I have any response from the Vimto boffins, then naturally I’ll include that here too. In the meantime, if anyone out there has any ideas then I’d love to hear them!
Incidentally, the correct ingredients for a ‘Cheeky Vimto’ are of course Blue WKD and Port, but I think you’ll agree that if I can get this to work it will be far cheekier than anything made with a girls drink and some strong plonk mixed together! I am the cheekiest of them all, and I intend to prove it!
UPDATE!
I’ve received a message from someone who has tried similar things! He kindly offered the following advice :
As a home wine maker myself, I have also dabbled with trying to get soft drinks to ferment. I’ve never succeeded, but I did hear of one successful fermentation starting with the cordial. I believe this was achieved by adding the cordial at a low level to the fermentation and then progressively adding more in the hope that the yeast would not be killed by the preservatives. Not sure what the final result will be if you do succeed - I use kits myself or apples from my tree! - but remember to drink responsibly!
Hmmm, interesting. I hadn’t thought of doing it that way, but it makes good sense. I think I’ll have a try with this new method and see what happens - I’ll keep updating with any progress!
I would recommend Lucozade as the basis of an alcoholic
Xander Cormorant | April 16, 2008I would recommend Lucozade as the basis of an alcoholic superalcopop. Although possibly the orange one would be the flavour of choice.
I shall bear that in mind, it sounds like it
Jimmy | April 17, 2008I shall bear that in mind, it sounds like it might be an interesting experiment!
Apparently, some of the preservatives can be "driven off" by
Fatbloke | June 7, 2008Apparently, some of the preservatives can be “driven off” by boiling the mix for a while - not hard boiling but a gentle simmer for 15 minutes or so. Even then I understand that you’d have to leave it for a day or so after to cool etc.
Ah, yes, and because of the presence of sorbate in the Vimto syrup, you might have to be more creative about the yeasts etc i.e. read up about making a “starter culture” because the sorbate would stop it multiplying in the normal way, so making a healthy starter will give it enough yeast cells to ferment, rather than having to wait for the yeast to multiply and then move into the fermentation phase.
How much of the flavour that would pass out of the wash/still I couldn’t say. Calvados and Armagnac for example, it seems are initially made quite weak in alcohol (between 6 and 10%), but very dry. Hence the transfer of the flavour in the rather inefficient alembics that are used for distillation. More often than not, lots of the actual taste seems to come via the wood that the barrels are made of, but it’s the aroma/smell of the apples/pears that comes across in the aromatic esters, and less of the taste.
have you tried fermenting a normal sugar mash and adding
guerrila distilla | June 29, 2008have you tried fermenting a normal sugar mash and adding the vimto after fermentation. that way you get all the flavours without the hassle of ph balancing/yeast killing additives. i have tried making a cherry flavoured spirit using cherry concentrate the same way and the results were pretty impressive. use a good turbo yeast (i use alcotec triple distilled), clear it with finings, draw off the liquid and add the cordial straight to the still and away you go. you don’t have to worry about off tastes produced by any addatives or chemicals that may react badly to fermentation using this method. there are too many problems fermenting a cordial to be worth the hassle. if you do succeed let me into the secret though