Types of drinks and preparing cold soft drinks

23 min

Let's begin

At a family celebration, the drinks table is often the busiest place: jugs of passion-fruit juice, a bowl of pineapple and ginger juice, bottles of soda, a flask of milky tea for the elders. Preparing drinks looks simple, but a drink made with unsafe water or dirty jugs can make a whole party ill, and a jug of sweetened juice can hold more sugar than a guest should eat in a day. A good cook chooses the right drink for the occasion, makes it hygienically, and serves it at its best.

Definition

Beverage: any drink.

Soft drink: a drink that contains no alcohol, served cold or hot. In everyday speech the term often means fizzy (carbonated) drinks such as soda, but in catering it covers all non-alcoholic drinks.

Juice: the liquid pressed or blended out of fruit or vegetables. Squash or cordial: a sweetened fruit concentrate that is diluted with water before serving.

Smoothie: a thick drink of whole blended fruit, often with milk or yoghurt. Milkshake: milk blended with fruit or flavouring.

Rules for preparing cold drinks

Safe water and ice. Use water that has been boiled and cooled, or treated, both in the drink and to make ice. Ice from unsafe water can carry cholera and typhoid even into a drink that is otherwise clean.
Clean hands and equipment. Wash hands, jugs, blender, strainer, knives and glasses in hot soapy water; rinse with safe water.
Good fruit. Choose ripe, sound fruit; wash it before cutting, even if it will be peeled, so that dirt on the skin is not carried onto the flesh by the knife.
Keep it cold and fresh. Fresh juice spoils quickly: chill it and serve within 2 hours, or keep it covered in the fridge and use it the same day.
Go easy on sugar. WHO counts fruit juice and added sugar as free sugars, which should be less than 10% of daily energy. Ripe fruit is sweet enough for most people; offer water as well.

Cold drink recipes (4 glasses of 250 mL)

Drink	Ingredients	Method
Passion-fruit juice	8 ripe passion fruits; 750 mL cold boiled water; sugar to taste (optional)	scoop out the pulp; blend in short pulses so the seeds are not crushed; strain; add water; chill
Tree-tomato juice (ibinyomoro)	6 ripe tree tomatoes; 600 mL cold boiled water; a little sugar	dip the fruit in boiling water for 1 minute, peel; blend with water; strain; chill
Pineapple and ginger juice	half a pineapple; a thumb of fresh ginger; 600 mL cold boiled water	peel and core the pineapple; grate the ginger; blend together; strain; chill
Avocado and banana smoothie	1 ripe avocado; 2 ripe bananas; 600 mL cold milk	blend until smooth; serve at once, because avocado darkens in the air
Lemonade	4 lemons; 900 mL cold boiled water; 3 tablespoons sugar	squeeze the lemons; dissolve the sugar in a little warm water; mix all; chill; add lemon slices

Chef Josh Omusiisisiisi: making fresh passion-fruit juice at home, with ideas for carrot and other juices. Watch how the pulp is separated from the seeds, and notice where you would use boiled, cooled water and clean equipment.

Worked example

Worked example 1: diluting a squash. A bottle of passion-fruit squash says "mix 1 part squash with 4 parts water". How much squash and water are needed for 2.5 L of drink?

The drink has $1 + 4 = 5$ parts.
One part: $\frac{2.5\,\mathrm{L}}{5} = 0.5\,\mathrm{L}$ .
Squash: $1 \times 0.5 = 0.5$ L; water: $4 \times 0.5 = 2$ L of cold, safe water.

Worked example

Worked example 2: scaling a recipe for a party. The passion-fruit juice recipe makes 1 L (4 glasses). How many passion fruits and how much water are needed for 30 guests, allowing 2 glasses each?

Glasses: $30 \times 2 = 60$ .
Scale factor: $\frac{60}{4} = 15$ .
Passion fruits: $8 \times 15 = 120$ ; water: $0.75 \times 15 = 11.25$ L.
Plan: buy about 125 fruits to allow for bad ones, boil and cool 12 L of water the day before, and make the juice on the morning of the party.

Warning

Safety. Unplug a blender before putting your hand near the blades or taking the jar off, and never push food down with a spoon while it is running. Hold the lid when blending. Wipe up spills at once. Some guests are allergic to milk, nuts or certain fruits: label drinks that contain them.

Tip

Memory hook: "Safe water, clean jug, ripe fruit, cold glass, little sugar."

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Practice

Define a soft drink, a squash and a smoothie.
Draw a simple chart to classify drinks into cold and hot soft drinks, with two examples of each.
Why must ice be made from safe water?
Why should fruit be washed even if it will be peeled?
A cordial is mixed 1 part to 5 parts water. How much cordial is needed for 3 L of drink?
Write the method for making pineapple and ginger juice for 8 glasses.
A school club plans to sell juice made with tap water and no fridge, prepared the evening before a sports day. Evaluate the plan and recommend improvements.

Show answersHide answers

Soft drink: any non-alcoholic drink. Squash: a sweetened fruit concentrate diluted with water before serving. Smoothie: a thick drink of whole blended fruit, often with milk or yoghurt.
Cold: fruit juices, squashes, smoothies, milk drinks, fizzy drinks, water. Hot: tea, coffee, cocoa, herbal infusions, hot milk drinks (any two each).
Germs in unsafe water survive freezing; when the ice melts in the drink they can cause diseases such as cholera and typhoid.
The knife carries dirt and germs from the skin onto the flesh as it cuts.
$1 + 5 = 6$ parts; one part $= \frac{3}{6} = 0.5$ L of cordial (and 2.5 L of water).
Double the recipe: peel and core a whole pineapple; grate two thumbs of ginger; blend with 1.2 L of cold boiled water; strain; chill and serve within 2 hours.
Unsafe: tap water may not be safe to drink unboiled, and juice kept overnight without a fridge can grow bacteria. Improve: use boiled and cooled water; make the juice on the morning of the sports day; keep it in clean, covered containers in a cool box with ice made from safe water; sell it within a few hours; use clean cups and keep hands washed.

Sources and credits

Lesson text, Figure 1, table, recipes, worked examples and practice: written by Ganzaa.
Free sugars: Healthy diet, fact sheet, World Health Organization, 2026. Safe water and ice: WHO Five Keys to Safer Food Manual, 2006. Summarised in Ganzaa's own words.
Photo: Cocktail of passion fruit juice and watermelon juice in a glass, B722N, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Video: How To Make Fresh PASSION FRUIT JUICE At Home, Chef Josh Omusiisisiisi, embedded from YouTube.

1Rules for preparing cold drinks

2Cold drink recipes (4 glasses of 250 mL)

Rules for preparing cold drinks

Cold drink recipes (4 glasses of 250 mL)