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Coca-Cola Bochet

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jar of beer, mead, cider, or kombucha. red color

Batch Notes

  • I caramelized my honey for 20 to 30 minutes over low heat, tasting every few minutes. You’re looking for a flavorful, caramel smell and taste without any burnt or acrid notes. Pull it before you think it’s done; it keeps darkening after you take it off the heat.
  • I backsweetened my mead with additional caramelized honey post-fermentation. If you want to sweeten yours, make sure to add stabilizers first. I go through the full process in how to stabilize mead.
  • Primary fermentation ran 30 days, final product came out dry with a tangy caramel character and a noticeable cinnamon and lime brightness on the finish. Backsweetened to FG of 1.030 at around 13% ABV.
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Batch Notes

  • I caramelized my honey for 20 to 30 minutes over low heat, tasting every few minutes. You’re looking for a flavorful, caramel smell and taste without any burnt or acrid notes. Pull it before you think it’s done; it keeps darkening after you take it off the heat.
  • I backsweetened my mead with additional caramelized honey post-fermentation. If you want to sweeten yours, make sure to add stabilizers first. I go through the full process in how to stabilize mead.
  • Primary fermentation ran 30 days, final product came out dry with a tangy caramel character and a noticeable cinnamon and lime brightness on the finish. Backsweetened to FG of 1.030 at around 13% ABV.

Ingredients:

Day of Batching

  • 2 lb. (0.9 kg) raw honey, caramelized
  • 0.75 gal. (2.8 L) Coca-Cola, flattened
  • 2.5 g K1-V1116 yeast (or similar wine yeast)
  • 4 g Fermaid O nutrient, staggered over the first 3 days

Post-Fermentation

  • Juice and peel of 1 lime
  • 1 toasted and charred oak stave
  • 1/2 cinnamon stick
  • 1/2 vanilla bean

Specifications:

Directions:

This recipe was one of the official recipes of Learn to Homebrew Day 2026, brought to you by Grainfather.

Created by Golden Hive Mead founder Charlie Biolo, this Coca-Cola bochet swaps water for flattened soda and pairs it with caramelized honey for a rich, tangy mead with notes of caramel, cinnamon, vanilla and lime. Let the soda go completely flat before fermenting, and pull the honey from the heat before it tastes done because it will continue to darken. After fermentation, stabilize before backsweetening and taste weekly while aging on oak and spices.

  1. Sanitize all your equipment before you touch anything else.
  2. Pour your Coca-Cola out ahead of time and let it go flat. You want the carbonation gone before it hits the fermenter.
  3. Caramelize your honey in a saucepan over low heat, stirring frequently and tasting every few minutes, for 20 to 30 minutes, until it’s flavorful and caramelly but not burnt.
  4. Combine the caramelized honey and flat Coca-Cola in your fermentation vessel, leaving a couple of inches of headspace. Record your starting gravity reading.
  5. Pitch your yeast.
  6. Add your Fermaid O nutrients.
  7. Stir until everything is combined, seal with an airlock, and ferment at room temperature out of direct sunlight. I recommend stirring vigorously once a day for the first few days of fermentation.
  8. Let it ferment for 30 days.
  9. Record final gravity and calculate ABV.
  10. Rack off the sediment into a clean, sanitized vessel, and stabilize.
  11. In a brew bag, add the lime juice, lime peel, oak stave, cinnamon stick, vanilla bean, and stir in additional honey as needed (make sure to consider the added volume when calculating adjusted final ABV). Taste weekly and pull the oak and spices once the flavor is where you want it.
  12. Bottle and enjoy!

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