The Ministry of Confusion

How To Make Sherbet

Sherbet (alternately spelt "sherbert") historically refered to fizzy, fruit flavoured drinks made using bicarbonate of soda. Now that most soft drinks are made with pressurised carbon-dioxide, the term sherbet usually means the fizzy powder (originally used to make the drink), eaten as a sweet by sucking it up through a straw.

You can make sherbets of your own using ingredients you can buy from most supermarkets. Purchase and mix together:

• 6 parts icing sugar
• 3 parts bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
• 1 parts citric acid (a common "food acid", you purchase this in powdered form)

Mix the resulting powder and taste, adding small amounts of particular ingredients until you get a pleasing result. Add further icing for sweetness, soda for fizzyness, or citric acid for tartness or "juiciness".

Finally flavour the powder by mixing through powdered soft-drink or crushed jelly (jello) crystals. So as not to alter the sweetness of the power, you should use a powdered soft-drink to which you would usually add sugar when making into a drink (i.e. an unsweetened powder).

The soda and the citric acid will react when mixed with saliva in your mouth or water in a glass, this is what gives the sherbet it's pleasant fizz. Don't mix it with acidic drinks (like commercial soft-drinks) however, as it will foam over. Never inhale it through a rolled up $20 bill, even if the idea seems amusing, because it will hurt a great deal.

How To Make Strawberry Vodka

Vodka of indifferent quality can be notoriously nasty. However, when mixed with strawberrys, it can be surprisingly smooth and pleasant. Here is what you do.

1. Take a bottle of vodka and pour it into a larger bottle, using a funnel
2. Take about 650 grams of strawberries per litre of vodka, remove the stalks and leaves and quarter them
3. Drop the strawberries into the bottle, cap it, and leave it for 4 days
4. Add white sugar until you're satisfied with the result
5. Don't eat the strawberries! As the flavours and aromas of the strawberries have leeched out into the vodka, the impurities in the vodka have been absorbed by the strawberries, hence the strawberries taste very nasty

This method works with other fruit, or vegetables, although the results may very. Capsacum is not bad, while onion is definitely very bad. Berry or stone-fruit tend to work best, while apples and bananas tend to produce a brown liquid (although it doesn't taste bad). The best way to experiment is with a series of small soda bottles.

Incidentally, unflavoured vodka makes a surprising good cleaning fluid, especially for removing blood and wine from carpets.