Berkilau Emas

Acaraki sell this sparkling turmeric drink in cans here and it’s really delicious, so I thought it might be nice to make at home. Really it’s just kunyit asam, one of the standard jamu you find all over Java, but adapted into a soft drink. Luckily they provide a recipe on their website, so I’ve pretty much reproduced that here with a few modifications after trying it for the first time, including the use of an aeropress to clean it up a little. I’ve also added an optional alcoholic variation, but haven’t yet tried that.

Adapted from here.

Serves 1

☑ TESTED

Ingredients

• 250 ml water
• 150 ml soda water
• 20 g turmeric powder
• 7 g tamarind pulp/concentrate
• 75 g rich simple syrup (‘rich’ here means a 2:1 ratio, so 50 g sugar in 25 ml water)
• ¼ tsp lime juice
• ice
• 40 ml white rum (optional)

Prep

Add 250 ml boiling water to the turmeric and tamarind. Brew for 5 minutes.

Half-fill a glass with ice cubes, then add the soda water, simple syrup, and lime juice (and rum, if using).

Through an aeropress (or just a fine strainer), add 100 ml of the turmeric-tamarind brew to the glass.