How are cola bottle sweets made?

Cola bottles are gummy sweets in the shape of a classic cola bottle, with a cola flavour. They are made by many companies, and Haribo's version, Happy Cola, is one of its key brands around the world. The classic bottle is a brownish red with a clear top.

How they are made

1. Cook the gummy. Sugar, glucose syrup and a gelling agent are cooked into a gummy mixture, and cola flavouring, acid and colour are added.
2. Stamp the moulds. Bottle shaped stamps are pressed into trays of starch powder, leaving rows of hollows. At Haribo, each new shape starts as a hand drawn sketch and a plaster model.
3. Deposit. The hot mixture is poured into the hollows. Two coloured sweets, like the brown bottle with a clear top, can be made by depositing two different masses into the same mould.
4. Set. The trays go into drying rooms while the gummies set.
5. Tip out. The bottles are tipped out and the starch is cleaned off: see how are gummy sweets shaped?
6. Finish. Haribo gives its gummies a thin wax film so they shine and do not stick together. Fizzy bottles are coated in sour sugar instead.

The cola taste

A cola bottle is flavoured to taste like the drink. The main flavourings in cola drinks are citrus oils from orange, lime and lemon peel, cinnamon, vanilla and an acid, with each brand adding its own trace flavourings, such as nutmeg or coriander. The name cola comes from the kola nut, which once gave the drinks their caffeine: see how are sweets flavoured?

Fizzy and sour bottles

Fizzy cola bottles get their bite from a coat of sour sanding, sugar mixed with citric, tartaric and malic acids, which sticks to the moistened sweets as they are tumbled: see how are sour sweets made? Fizzy Blue Bottles, made by the French company Lutti and often found in pick and mix, are sour and coloured blue and pink. Other makers sell lime cola bottles, with a green top instead of a clear one, and green mint flavoured bottles.

Gelatine and vegan bottles

Many gummies are set with gelatine, which is not vegetarian, but vegan versions use plant gelling agents instead: see how do jelly sweets set? Our pick and mix has Cola Bottles, Fizzy Cola Bottles and Vegan Fizzy Cola Bottles, and each card opens up to show its full ingredients and allergens.

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