# Alcoholic Ribena



## peppo (15/11/09)

me and a mate of mine have been talking about making alcoholic ribena (that blackcurrant stuff) he did some research and told me that the preservatives contained in cordials stops the fermentation proccess. So my question is: could you just mix water yeast and sugar in the fermenter to make alcoholic water then ad the ribena when bottleing? and would this just taste like absolute dog shit? has any body tried anything like this?


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## dgilks (15/11/09)

Why don't you just mix the Ribena with some vodka and soda water? I'm 99% sure it will be easier and better.


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## bullsneck (15/11/09)

Ribena and vodka might be an easier option.


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## bum (15/11/09)

dgilks said:


> Why don't you just mix the Ribena with some vodka and soda water? I'm 99% sure it will be easier and better.



dgilks speaketh the truth.


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## Fourstar (15/11/09)

Brew a berliner Weisse or a wheat beer with a neutral yeast like 1056 and bottle it with a big dose of lactic acid.

I have one stored in bottles and i love giving it a dose of ribena. :icon_drool2:


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## hughyg (15/11/09)

I think you may be able to oxidize the preservative out of the cordial with hydrogen peroxide if you are feeling really daring! Then try and ferment it.


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## Bribie G (16/11/09)

+1 with fourstar. However another thing to try: When mass produced lagers came out in the UK in the 1960s a very popular drink when you took the Mrs to the pub (not that you would have done anything shocking like that in Australia at the time) was a lager-n-lime or a lager-n-black served in a half pint ladies glass. However I expect that nowadays in the UK women mostly drink vodka and red bull then go on a ladette rampage burning cars and beating up stray males.

Try a very low hop lager like TED or Hahn super dry, give it a good slug of ribena, skoll a few pints and see what you reckon.


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## Mr.Moonshine (16/11/09)

I tried to ferment out a whole bunch of apple blackcurrant tetrapacks (similar preservatives I suspect), and the result was atrocious. If you're -flavouring- with Ribena you could maybe pull it off, but you'd have to basically be doing a mostly sugar ferment (You'll need to use yeast nutrient), with the ribena in it. A better option (very similar to BribieG and Fourstars suggestions) would be to brew an ultra ultra light beer (something like an american light lager with a bit of extra gravity) which uses alot of adjunct, go really really easy on the hops, and rack the beer onto a bottle or two of ribena in secondary. That way, the ferment would basically be finished, you won't get alot of off flavours in the original base brew and you'll get the ribena flavour into the brew fairly well.

Cheers,

Mr.Moonshine


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## Airgead (16/11/09)

You could try fermenting some preservative free apple and black currant juice (2 or 3l bottles in the supermarket). I suspect it will taste pretty crap though. Although I have done some black currant meads which were pretty good. Might work out OK.

As others have said. Ribena and vodka would be an easier (and tastier) bet.

Cheers
Dave


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## boingk (16/11/09)

Sounds like you want to make a cruiser or a cocktail, peppo. Check out this site for a bit more info on how you could go about the alcoholic side of that.

Regards - boingk


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## Asher (16/11/09)

Barfridge used to make a pretty mean Ribooza a few years back


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## peppo (24/1/10)

well i did it and it doesnt taste to bad at all, and it gets you pretty hammered as well!! it took ages in the fermenter though and I mainly used fresh mixed berries to get the initial flavour with a small amount of ribena, and then just added a heap of ribena when I bottled it. It has a slight wine taste to it and is quite sweet


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## Screwtop (24/1/10)

Lots of Turbo Cider made in the UK and a popular one on "The Homebrew Forum" in the UK is Cheeky Vimto. Made from a fruit juice drink called Vimto, it is made of grape, raspberry and blackcurrant juice and fermented with S-04 yeast.

Some info re Vimto here.

Made a version for Xmas here which was pretty well received from Aldi preservative free juice. Called it Cheeky Grapple.


Screwy


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## MarkMc (25/1/10)

UK town pubs and clubs do a double port in a bottle of blue wkd - they call that a cheeky Vimto....


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## Ian Gommers (25/1/10)

Airgead said:


> You could try fermenting some preservative free apple and black currant juice (2 or 3l bottles in the supermarket). I suspect it will taste pretty crap though. Although I have done some black currant meads which were pretty good. Might work out OK.
> 
> As others have said. Ribena and vodka would be an easier (and tastier) bet.
> 
> ...



Have done this using Oztops, turned out surprisingly tasty.


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## jivesucka (8/2/10)

this thread is relevant to my interests. bump bumpity bump.


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