“Feel the fizz of Coo Coo Cola!” - Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers Episode 27

Inspiration

Gadget Hackwrench appears in the movie, TV show, and games of Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, and she even has a ride in Disneyland Gadget's Go Coaster. She is a quirky and obsessed inventor based on Jordan in the 1985 movie, Real Genius. She shows true caring for her team and has a warmth about her. In Episode 27 of Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers, "The Case of The Cola Cult", she becomes disheartened by the breakdown of many of her inventions and attempts to join the cola cult. She is also known as Chip and Dale's love interest but she is either caught up in her inventions or too naive to notice. Gadget’s inspired drink is as nutty as she and the gang are, and it features orange and cola flavors reminiscent of Gadget’s most pivotal episode.

Workshopping

Peanut Orgeat

The Rescue Rangers live in a tree house that is often messy because of one of the chipmunk brothers Dale. A few episodes depict leftover peanuts strewn across their room. This along with Gadget being a bit “nutty”, for lack of a better term, inspired the ‘nut’ part of the drink. Although acorns are shown most prominently in the show, peanuts were the easiest nut to source for us at the XBar. To make the peanut orgeat, we used a recipe by Drinking with My Brother that they used in their recipe The Tallulah originally from the Gastropub in Birmingham, Alabama.

We’ve Got the Flavors

Episode 27 of Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers features an underground cult of mice that worship this soda product called Coo Coo Cola. In the universe of the show, the cola comes in three flavors: orange, grape, and cherry. Having had to pick between these three fruits, I went with orange juice because it was the easiest to source, and the predominant color of cola shown in the show was orange. I had the idea to try acid-adjusting for the first time for this recipe, so we added citric acid to orange juice until it had the sour level that we were looking for. The recipe we used was as follows.

Acid-Adjusted Orange Juice

• 100 ml Orange Juice (strained)

• 5.2 g Citric Acid

Feel the Fizz

After we created our two specialty ingredients we shook them both with a bit of Bourbon (based on my own preference for Jack and Cokes). Then we topped it off with the fizz (Coca-Cola in this case!) As we mixed it, we most certainly felt the fizz, as the Coo Coo Colas had demanded in their dogmatic advertisements. Turns out that the acid in the orange juice did wonders to fizz up the cola! It didn’t quite have the same neon orange color as it did in the show, but flavor-wise, I could see a cult forming around such a combination. It might just be me though.

Flavor Analysis

A thick and sweetened peanut butter soda-like beverage with a citrusy kick! After bracing through the sour beginning, the flavors of peanut brittle leave a sweet aftertaste.