Not sure what the best name for this is. “Smoked Coke” has a nice ring to it. The backstory here is that I participated in a White Elephant party, and one of the gifts was a cheap cocktail smoker kit. It came with a wooden lid/cap, a butane torch, 6 types of wood chips, and some ice accessories. Since I don’t drink alcohol I thought it would be interesting to use the kit and experiment with some smoked sodas/mocktails. Smoked Coca-Cola and Smoked Dr Pepper were my starting points.

Smoked Coke

To fancy this up a bit, I also added a little bit of Monday’s non-alcoholic whiskey. It has a bitter and spicy cinnamon profile, and that seemed like it would take to smoke pretty well. I chose pecan chips for this, but oak or cherry would have been fine as well. I made sure to leave a bit of room at the top of the glass, gave it a healthy blast from the butane torch, and let the chemistry of pyrolysis do its thing.

In case you’re skeptical, the smoke produced by the chips adds a lot of aromatics to the air (and a slight residue to the glass), but it is also flavoring the liquid in the beverage. There are small acidic particles from the smoke that incorporate into the drink itself and provide that “smokey” flavor. It’s my opinion that the aromatics from the smoke add more to the experience than the volatile compounds in the liquid, but I have nothing to back that up.

Regardless of the science, the flavor is decent. I don’t expect Coca-Cola to release a “Smokey” limited edition flavor anytime soon, but there was an elegance to it that I enjoyed. It wasn’t a dramatic difference, but the novelty was enough for me. Here’s a video of the process.

Smoked Dr Pepper

This one worked a bit better for me. I think that the stronger fruit and almond flavors of Dr Pepper were a great foundation for a bit of smoke, and the cherry wood magnified what was already there. I smoked it twice because I needed a better picture, and it was very prominent. Again, it’s a bit of a campfire vibe, but I’m here for it.

I made a short video of this one. See below. Anything else I should smoke?

Links

Here’s a link to the cocktail smoker kit that I used. I don’t think it’s very high quality, so you could certainly buy something a bit fancier.

Here’s a link for Monday’s non-alcoholic whiskey.