Browsing the fruit and vegetable aisles at our local market I settled on raspberries as a good natural pink coloring agent, and also a very tasty fruit. I read up on a couple of raspberry lime rickey recipes and settled on the following ingredients (again, very simple and requires very little prep time):
-one cup fresh raspberries (intend to try frozen to compare results);
-one cup sugar;
-1/2 cup water;
-juice of 1/2 lime per serving (recipe makes three servings);
-seltzer or drinking water with which to mix or carbonate.
The berries, sugar and 1/2 cup water went into our trusty stainless saucepan. I mashed the berries with a wooden spoon and heated while stirring over medium heat until the sugar dissolved then brought to simmer.
The mixture smelled great and made the kitchen smell like raspberries. I simmered the mixture for 8 minutes to reduce the syrup, then removed from heat and strained through a fine mesh strainer. This yielded one cup of syrup.
For one serving of soda, mix 1/3 cup of syrup with 1 1/3 cup cold seltzer or water and add the juice of 1/2 lime in your favorite glass, add ice if you wish, and enjoy!
The result was a dark pink soda that smelled great and had a very clean fruity taste. The scent of the raspberries came through in the final product, and the lime juice added a pleasant tartness that complemented the sweetness of the raspberries. It was a very refreshing and tasty soda ... success! Try at home, and please let us know if you find ways to improve upon this simple soda.