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Fizzy cola bottles
Take a cola bottle, tumble it in sugar sharpened with acid, and you have a fizzy cola bottle. Three recipes sold in the UK show how differently they can be made: one vegan, one halal and one neither.
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Fizzy cola bottles are cola flavoured gummy bottles tumbled in sugar sharpened with acid. For the plain, glazed kind, see cola bottles, and for how both are shaped, see how are cola bottle sweets made?
Three recipes, three diets
Kingsway fizzy cola bottles, as listed by The Candy King. Sugar, glucose syrup, wheat starch, water, modified maize starch, lactic, malic and citric acids, sodium malates, modified potato starch, caramel syrup and flavouring. The retailer labels them vegan and vegetarian, and marks wheat as an allergen.
Fizzy cola bottles, as listed by Sweets and Candy. Glucose syrup, sugar, corn starch, gelatine, glycerol, citric and malic acids, concentrates of molasses, hibiscus, apple and carrot, pectins and flavourings. The listing does not say which animal the gelatine comes from.
Halal fizzy cola bottles, as listed by Sweets and Candy. Glucose syrup, sugar, corn starch, beef gelatine, citric acid, tartaric and malic acids, plain caramel as a colour, and flavouring. The retailer says they are made with certified halal gelatine.
Starch instead of gelatine
Kingsway's recipe has no gelatine. It is set with wheat, maize and potato starches, which is how it can be labelled vegan: see starch jelly sweets explained
The trade off is wheat. Kingsway's bottles are not suitable for anyone who must avoid wheat, so a vegan label does not make a sweet safe for everyone: see wheat in sweets and what sweets are vegan in the UK?
The colours
None of the three recipes lists a synthetic colour. Kingsway's contains caramel syrup, the standard Sweets and Candy recipe uses concentrates of molasses, hibiscus, apple and carrot, and the halal recipe uses plain caramel, a colour made by heating sugars. That is quite different from Kingsway's plain cola bottles, which list four added colours: see cola bottles
Why they taste sharp
The coat is sugar mixed with acids. All three recipes use citric and malic acids, Kingsway's adds lactic acid, and the halal recipe adds tartaric acid. None lists bicarbonate, so the sharpness comes from acid rather than real fizz: see how are sour sweets made? and why do fizzy sweets fizz on your tongue?
Other allergy points
Sweets and Candy says its sweets are packed where wheat, gluten, soya, milk, peanuts and nuts are handled, and it marks the halal bottles as may contain gluten: see pick and mix and allergies
In our pick and mix
We sell 
Fizzy Cola Bottles and 
Vegan Fizzy Cola Bottles by the 100 g. Recipes differ between makers, so each card opens up to show the full ingredients and allergens for the fizzy cola bottles we actually stock.
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Questions and answers
Are fizzy cola bottles vegan?
Some are. One UK retailer labels Kingsway's fizzy cola bottles vegan: they are set with starch instead of gelatine. Others are made with gelatine, so check the label.
Are fizzy cola bottles gluten free?
Not Kingsway's vegan ones, which are made with wheat starch and list wheat as an allergen. The gelatine recipes here do not list wheat, but one retailer marks its halal bottles as may contain gluten.
Are fizzy cola bottles halal?
Some are. One UK retailer sells Halal Fizzy Cola Bottles made with certified halal beef gelatine. Its standard fizzy cola bottles do not say where their gelatine comes from.
Do fizzy cola bottles really fizz?
Not in the way sherbet does. Their coat is sugar mixed with acids, which tastes sharp, and none of the three recipes here lists bicarbonate, the ingredient that makes sherbet fizz.
Sources
- Fizzy cola bottles, Kingsway, product listing, The Candy King
- Fizzy cola bottles 1kg, product listing, Sweets and Candy
- Halal fizzy cola bottles 1kg, product listing, Sweets and Candy
- Caramel coloring, Wikipedia
Keep reading
- Sweet by sweetCola bottlesCola bottles are cola flavoured gummy sweets shaped like bottles. One recipe uses four added colours, another lists only caramelised sugar.
- How it is madeHow are cola bottle sweets made?Cola bottles are cola flavoured gummies cast in bottle shaped hollows in trays of starch, set, then glazed or, for fizzy ones, tumbled in sour sugar.
- How it is madeHow are sour sweets made?Sour sweets get acid inside and out: citric or malic acid can be mixed into the sweet, and sour coated ones are tumbled in sugar mixed with acid crystals.
- Diet, allergens and labelsStarch jelly sweets explainedStarch can set a jelly sweet without gelatine, as in Turkish delight, and trays of starch shape gummies. What that means for vegans, and why they firm up.
- Diet, allergens and labelsWheat in sweetsWheat turns up in liquorice, wafer bars and malted centres, while wheat glucose syrup is exempt from gluten labelling. How to spot wheat and gluten.
- Questions people askWhat sweets are vegan in the UK?Fruit Pastilles, Fruit Gums, Jelly Tots and Percy Pigs are all now vegan. What to check on the label, and why recipes keep changing.