Red Kola is a carbonated

soft drink A soft drink (see § Terminology for other names) is a drink that usually contains water (often carbonated), a sweetener, and a natural and/or artificial flavoring. The sweetener may be a sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, fruit juice, a su ...

made from fruit extracts, and may include flavouring from the

kola nut The term kola nut usually refers to the seeds of certain species of plant of the genus ''Cola'', placed formerly in the cocoa family Sterculiaceae and now usually subsumed in the mallow family Malvaceae (as subfamily Sterculioideae). These cola ...

. Red Kola is made by various firms including Currie's (operated by Dunns Food & Drinks Ltd), Solripe, and

A.G. Barr A.G. Barr plc, commonly known as Barr's, is a soft drink manufacturer based in Cumbernauld, Scotland. It is widely known for manufacturing the drink Irn-Bru. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Ind ...

. Despite the name, it bears no resemblance to more traditional cola drinks in either flavour or appearance. It is bright red in colour and has a unique taste, significantly sharper than cola and with a strong fruit base.

Ingredients

Currie's Red Kola: carbonated water, sugar,

tartaric acid Tartaric acid is a white, crystalline organic acid that occurs naturally in many fruits, most notably in grapes, but also in bananas, tamarinds, and citrus. Its salt, potassium bitartrate, commonly known as cream of tartar, develops naturally i ...

, flavourings, preservative ( sodium benzoate), sweeteners (sodium saccharin,

aspartame Aspartame is an artificial non-saccharide sweetener 200 times sweeter than sucrose and is commonly used as a sugar substitute in foods and beverages. It is a methyl ester of the aspartic acid/phenylalanine dipeptide with the trade names ...

), colours (

E163 Anthocyanins (), also called anthocyans, are water-soluble vacuolar pigments that, depending on their pH, may appear red, purple, blue, or black. In 1835, the German pharmacist Ludwig Clamor Marquart gave the name Anthokyan to a chemical compo ...

E100 E100 or E-100 may refer to: Electronics * Casio Cassiopeia E-100, a pocket of knife PC * iriver E100, a portable media player Vehicles Automobiles * Baojun E100, a Chinese electric microcar * JMEV E100, a Chinese electric city car * Toyota Co ...

). Barr Red Kola: carbonated water, sugar, citric acid, flavouring, concentrates (

black carrot The carrot (''Daucus carota'' subsp. ''sativus'') is a root vegetable, typically orange in color, though purple, black, red, white, and yellow cultivars exist, all of which are domesticated forms of the wild carrot, ''Daucus carota'', nati ...

, safflower), sweeteners (

sucralose Sucralose is an artificial sweetener and sugar substitute. The majority of ingested sucralose is not broken down by the body, so it is noncaloric. In the European Union, it is also known under the E number E955. It is produced by chlorination of ...

, acesulfame K), preservative ( sodium benzoate).

References

Cola Scottish drinks {{Soft-drink-stub