Surge and Mountain Dew’s Secret Ingredient: Make Your Own Version

Surge has hit the warehouse shelves at Amazon.com. Surge, popular in the 90s was what some called Coca -Cola’s answer to Mountain Dew.  If we look at the nutritional breakdown of Surge, we see the good news about Surge’s nutritional value: It has 0 grams of fat. But, on the downside, Surge gets all of its calories from carbs, and we all know what happens to carbs — they turn to fat — especially when loaded with sugar. With 12.3 grams of sugar in each serving of Surge, we can safely assume that the nutritional value of Surge has plummeted.

Jeremy Butler, in his book, Making Soda at Home, and his accompanying website, revealed that the tangy flavor that gives Mountain Dew its zing is lemon, lime — and the secret ingredient, ORANGE!  

The flavors are so appealing — but let’s just skip over the loads of caffeine, and loads of sugar, and head to the produce aisle and make our own version of these two popular Sodas.

We’ll be using the Gingerbug, but if you want to make another form of carbonation, refer to Jeremy’s book, or this post on his website to make it without the bug.

To make 1/2 gallon of soda:

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 ginger bug
• 1/4 cup lime juice
• 1/4 lemon juice
• 1/4 orange juice

Notice, that Jeremy uses less lime — but I prefer the stronger lime taste — adjust to your preferences.

1. First, follow Jeremy’s awesome tip and bring the water to boil with the sugar, with a dash of cream of tartar. Jeremy says, “the tartar hydrolyzes the sugar and makes it sweeter. Sweeter taste, same number of calories.”
2. Let the water cool. If it’s too warm, you’ll kill the bug.
3. Add the water to the jar, along with the citrus juice and ginger bug.
4. Stir, and let this sit at room temperature for 2-3 days, with a tightly sealed lid. Each day, shake your soda, and check the lid. When you hear that familiar “soda fizz” sound release, your soda is ready to drink, or ready to move, right away to the refrigerator — before it explodes!