Seven bottles, each built to read as one flavour, meant to go a drop at a time into a drink you already have.
Cream, custard, caramel, cake, cookie, cherry and hazelnut: every bottle is a different flavour, and none of them carries any sweetness of its own, so the drink keeps whatever sweetness it started with.
Coffee, soda, tea, a shake, or a syrup to use later. The Jerk Soda Builder has a way in for each of the seven.
Seven single notes, concentrated enough that one drop changes a glass. The story of why they work like this is underneath.
What a dirty soda is and where it came from is a page of its own; How to make a dirty soda has the full method. The Basedrop Builder turns any of these seven drops into a dirty soda for the glass in front of you: pick the soda, the drop and the top, and it counts the drops for the size, draws the drink and writes out the steps. For where the drink came from, read the soda jerk story.
What the rail produced
None of these needed a new ingredient. Each is the same soda water, or the same cream, plus a different pull off the rail, which is why they can be rebuilt now from a can of soda and a drop. The two built on soda water take a rich syrup rather than a drop: soda water brings no sugar of its own, and both were syrup drinks to begin with.
Ginger ale, grenadine and a maraschino cherry. Named for a child star who said she had nothing to do with it, and who told an American radio interviewer in 1986 that she hated them. Too sweet. The build here is lemonade, a Cherry drop and a cream on top.
Cherry dropMake it now
Vanilla ice cream dropped into lemonade or creaming soda, and the foam it throws up the moment it lands is the whole point of it. The name is a New Zealand and Australian one: the same drink is a float almost everywhere else, and nobody agrees whether the spider is the shape of the foam or the legs of melted ice cream running down the inside of the glass.
Cream dropMake it now
Soda water, a cherry syrup and a dash of acid phosphate for tartness. An everyday counter drink of the nineteenth-century fountain rather than an occasion, and nowhere in it to hide.
Cherry, rich syrupMake it now
A cream-flavoured soda is often traced to the 1850s, and the version most people picture is a New York one from the late 1860s. When it reached New Zealand is not recorded.
Hazelnut dropMake it now
Ginger ale blended with vanilla ice cream, and a Detroit drink with nothing to do with Boston. Even the reason for the name is still argued over.
Cream dropMake it now
Syrup, a scoop, and soda water poured down the side of the glass so it foams over the top. The one the fountain was famous for; this build keeps its shape and swaps the scoop for a shaken cream.
Caramel, rich syrupMake it now
The range
Each one is a single note, concentrated enough that one drop changes a glass. Start with what you already drink and pick the flavour it is missing.
The one to start with
Layered dairy: vanilla bean ice cream, fresh cream and sweet cream. It rounds off anything sharp, which is why it is the drop most people reach for twice.
See the bottlefrom $14.95
Thick and slow
Dense, eggy vanilla custard with the buttery note of an old-fashioned pudding. Heavier than the cream, and it stays put in a glass instead of lifting off the top.
See the bottlefrom $14.95
Milk, not toffee
Milk caramel and dark sugar, with a warm oaky note underneath. It reads round rather than brittle.
See the bottlefrom $14.95
Lemon and icing
Lemon cake, iced: a citrus sponge under vanilla icing, with a touch of meringue. It lands brighter than a plain sponge would.
See the bottlefrom $14.95
Butter, baked short
Soft sweet dough under a buttery baked crust. Drier than the cake, and better in hot drinks for exactly that reason.
See the bottlefrom $14.95
The fountain one
Soda fountain cherry, not fresh fruit: a sweet, clean top note. This is the flavour a cherry cola is supposed to have.
See the bottlefrom $14.95
Built for coffee
Roasted hazelnut in clean fresh dairy and sweet cream. It is at its best in a flat white or a latte, without a syrup bottle on the bench.
See the bottlefrom $14.95
The obvious ones, for the bar gun, the espresso machine and the shaker: seven drops for the drinks already in your fridge.
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