Restaurant, beverage bottlers and convenience stores are all familiar with the syrups mixtures used to make great tasting beverages. Basically syrups are a simple of water, sweeteners, acidulates and, of course, flavor (other flavor enhancers, and even vitamins or minerals are added). Now lets look into what really gives your favorite drink its delicious flavor.

Restaurant, beverage bottlers and convenience stores are all familiar with the syrups mixtures used to make great tasting beverages. Basically syrups are a simple of water, sweeteners, acidulates and, of course, flavor (other flavor enhancers, and even vitamins or minerals are added). Now lets look into what really gives your favorite drink its delicious flavor.

Emulsion or Extract, Whats the Difference?

Flavor comes in two forms, extracts and emulsions. Both types of flavor are derived from processes designed to solve the problem of mixing the oils that come from plants and chemicals that contain the flavor with the water necessary to make a liquid that can be turned into a beverage. To understand the problem a little better, lets use a citrus fruit like a lemon for our example. If you take the peel of a lemon and squeeze or twist it, little beads of liquid will appear on the skin. These liquids, which contain the flavor of the lemon in a highly concentrated form, are little droplets of oil. We can use these oils to add flavor to any product, but to do so we usually need to mix it with water to create the finished product. Since oil is insoluble in water, we need to find a way to disperse the flavoring oils. These dispersions are called extracts or emulsions.

Extracts are made by combining the oil containing the flavor with a fifty percent ethyl alcohol solution. Flavoring oils are best made soluble with the use of ethyl alcohol. The flavoring oil and ethyl alcohol solution is left to stand for approximately one week. During this waiting period the soluble parts and the insoluble parts start to separate. As soon as the solutions separation process is completed the insoluble parts are filtered and discarded. The soluble part of the solution, which is quite clear in appearance, becomes the flavoring extract. Extracts, due to their stability have a long shelf life.

Emulsions on the other hand employ a different process in making dispersible flavor. With the use of homogenization, emulsions are created by forcing the flavoring oils to dissolve onto an emulsifying agent, usually vegetable gum. An emulsion becomes a suspension of oil on a water soluble medium which helps to minimize the separation that naturally happens when oil and water are combined. Emulsions unlike clear extracts are rather cloudy in appearance and weigh a bit more. Generally emulsions have shorter shelf life than its clear counterpart.

Which Dispersion is the Better Choice?

So now that you know the difference between emulsions and extracts which one should you use? The one factor you need to consider when deciding is your beverages appearance. For clear beverages like lime soda, an extract should be the choice. If you are making a cola then the emulsion is the appropriate dispersion. Regardless if its clear or cloudy, emulsions and extracts are the foundation of syrups and are essential in producing excellent tasting beverages.