HERBAL SODA POP WOW

By Calvin Tatum

There are a lot of high-energy drinks springing (or should I say bubbling up?) on the market in the world today: Red Bull, Energy Activator, Bong Water, Monster Lo-Carb, Pimp Juice, SoBe Adrenaline Rush...wow!

I had been riding around Baltimore in my blue Honda Civic for more than a week--me a little soda-pop junkie--wondering why there are no low-energy drinks for people who want to chill. Even without high-energy drinks some people are hyper, full of anxiety, why isn't there a soda pop that will make them want to crawl up in comfy position and relax? Huh?

Why were there no sodas called Settle Down, Girl or Cool Out, Dude that would fit into the hip-hop culture as well as Wired X3000, Power Trip Energy Drink, Gorilla Juice ... those are real names. I swear. Go to http://www.bandddesigns.com/energy/ there are 131 energy drinks there, with reviews, but no cool out drinks.

These days cooling out is more important than getting energized, what with road rage on the increase. Some of these people need to take it easy. So I went on the Internet to study energy drinks. I wanted to know who the enemy was in my war to slow life down rather than speed it up, especially these hip-hop guys racing around town with car windows down playing that pump-you-up music they all play.

I was three days into my research when all of a sudden an Instant Message (IM) popped in from my editor at SVDigitalUniverse:

Jazzy girl 473: Calvin, we want you to do a story for us on herbal soda pop.

Caldaddy3: Yes, Jasmine, I can do that.

Jazzygirl 473: You're a sweetheart.

Caldaddy3: i know! what do you mean by herbal soda pop?

Jazzygirl 473: A herb is a plant or part of a plant that is used for medicine, spice, aromatic oil, soap, cream or fragrance. The herb can be the leaf, flower, stem, seed, root, fruit, bark, or any other plant part.

Caldaddy3: You've got it memorized, huh?

Jazzygirl 473: I keyed it in from the poster right in front of me.

Caldaddy3: All soda pops started off as herbal tonics--root beer, kola nuts, ginger roots - he-l-l-lo! even beer is made from fermented grain and flavored with a herb-hops. it was medicinal. Wine is made by fermenting parts of a plant, the fruit, and it is medicinal. Ale is just like beer. Whiskey is a distilled herbal brew.

Jazzygirl 473: You know a lot about this stuff, huh?

Caldaddy3: Of course. Have I got a surprise for you!

Jazzygirl 473: We love you, Calvin.

They universe was sending me a sign. When Jasmine IMed me, I was reading about a guy who made millions with this stuff called Gorilla Juice. Gads! Who wants to go around town feeling like a gorilla? But I liked the Gorilla Juice story. It proves that little guys do sometimes win!

I went mad on the Internet, reading about herbs--which ones had a relaxing effect? H-m-m-m! kava kava--induces relaxation, improves social interaction and promotes sleep. Wow! Then I read a little more and found that there was some evidence that Kava is linked to liver damage.

I couldn't put a disclaimer on my soda pop. The Surgeon General has determined that this beverage could cause liver problems. That would really gross people out. The next best candidate was valerian, but one web site said: "Valerian. Phew, that's what Greek physicians in first century called the valerian root. I can understand why: the smell is somewhat reminiscent of cat urine."

Red Bull doesn't smell all that great if you asked me. Next in line was chamomile, but chamomile conjures up images of a sweet grandmothers sitting in a rocking chairs in cotton pajamas sipping chamomile tea. "Would you spread that blanket around my shoulders, sweetie?"

I kept reading but in the end it seems that valerian and chamomile. I wanted to be a purist so I started looking around for raw valerian root and fresh chamomile leaves to boil. But then I read that the psychoactive effects of most plants are in the plant's essential oils and these evaporate if you boil the plant itself; so I was going to send off for chamomile essential oil and valerian essential oil, but then I read that this stuff is really powerful and I wouldn't know how much to use.

Extracts of chamomile and valerian--that's it--we all use extracts in cooking. How much harm could they do? But then there was the yeast. How much? Too little would not produced the fizz that you want from a good soda but too much, several sites said, might cause your bottle to explode. I thought about shards of glass flying all over the kitchen.

Should I use some of those amino acids that the energy drinks use to speed up chemical processes in the cells? Do you speed up a slow-down effect? Isn't that a contradiction? All of these details were making my head ache until I saw some research the last sentence of which said 10 of 12 patients fell into deep sleep shortly after drinking the tea. That was good enough for me. I calculated my odds, fixed myself a giant cup of chamomile tea, drank it and that's the last thing I remembered.

When I woke up my head ache was gone and everything was crystal clear. When the extracts arrived by mail, I was ready. I had read that 410 mg of valerian three times a day was a good dosage, I took that to mean 410 mgs for each bottle of pop, three bottles of pop per day, which is nothing for a soda pop junkie.

My research showed that the same amount of chamomile extract would do the trick. So I added all that up to give me the amount of extract for each gallon of soda. To keep my soda pop from smelling like cat urine I also ordered lemon, mango, orange, peach, pineapple, and raspberry extracts, not knowing which one I would use to make my top-secret flavoring mixture.

Most of the of the instructions I saw suggested dissolving 1 to 2 cups of sugar in a quart of hot water and 1 teaspoon of dry yeast in a half cup of lukewarm water for each gallon of soda. Not enough yeast, not enough fizz; too much yeast you might burst your bottle. The last didn't bother me, since I was going to use plastic bottles.

After I combined the sugar and yeast mixture, I was like a mad scientist, Dr. Frankenstein, Dr. Griffin and Dr. Moreau all rolled into one. I was bent over with my eye dropper, adding in just the right among of sleepy time extracts and just the right amount of flavoring extracts, stirring and tasting constantly with a teaspoon until I got it right where I wanted it.

I made four batches and put it all in soda-sized plastic bottles, not quite filling each one, screwed the caps on tight and waited for the sugar and yeast to create carbon dioxide and alcohol. The carbon dioxide would have escaped into the air but with the tops on tight there was no choice but for it to infuse into the mixture and create the fizz, the pop.

During the day, I dutifully squeezed the bottles and over time felt them getting progressively harder as more carbon dioxide was created. When I was sure that I didn't have to release any of the carbon dioxide to keep the plastic from bursting I set the sodas aside for a few days, and began thinking about a marketing slogan. I came up with a good one: Red Bull might pick you up while it cools you down, but Calvin's Chamomile Cooler will cool you down while it cools you out.

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