Butter Beer! aka Butterscotch Soda

butterbeer recipe from cherryteacakes.com
When it comes to store bough candy I don't care for many of them. For most candy bars the chocolate coatings tastes like wax, and the fillings are so processed  I cringe when I look at the labels. For all my food prejudices, caramels never take a bullet. No matter what they are made of I love them dearly. Part of it, I'm sure, must be a bit of childhood nostalgia for Werther's Originals. I love them then, and can't seem to kick the habit now.

I've been doing some recipe creation for an online bridal magazine and they requested an attempt at a butter yellow soda. To be closer to butter yellow I could have used other candies, but when I heard butter I thought of butterscotch, and then caramels and of course that meant walking to the CVS next to my office to buy a band of cheap candy. Darn you, nostalgia, you will be the death of my diet.

That poor little bag of caramel didn't know what was coming. The full bag made it's way into a food processor, and was ground into a fine powder, then thrown into boiling water to make a delicious butter caramel syrup. (Frankly, I think this would make a good harry potter butterbeer as well).

The end result is a soda that tastes just like the candies...which I consider a great thing! I don't mind saying I kicked a few back, and the reason that bottle up there is alone, and only half full is that I didn't want to stop drinking the soda long enough to photograph it. I really love my caramels.

I hope you enjoy this soda. I'm on vacation this week in California. Hooray! Ten day trip full of good friends and good food! I've stocked up a few recipes to post while I'm gone. I may be on vacation but I'm a still a food addict.

Cheers! (and fake butterbeers!)

Caramel Soda

1 cup caramel hard candies, ground into a powder (not one cup of powder)
1 cup water
club soda

Boil together the water and hard candy powder for a few minutes until just combined into a syrup. Allow to cool, stir frequently.

Add one part caramel syrup to two parts club soda. You may have to shake a wee bit to combine.

Enjoy!