Jerks have never been so popular. Soda jerks, that is. Americans are rediscovering a lust for fizzes with a fervor not seen since the turn of the 19th century. Sales of the Sodastream, the home water carbonator, were up nearly 300 percent last year. My fiancé bought me one for my birthday, and I haven’t stopped jerking since. She understands.

Making soda at home is cheaper and I daresay healthier than opening a gas station cooler, since the average amateur pop artist isn’t sweetening their drinks with buckets of high fructose corn syrup. But here’s the real reason it’s better: you get to make up amazing flavors, especially if you use great produce. There are few nobler deaths for overripe fruit.

Start with your basic simple syrup recipe: an even ratio of sugar to water. Two cups of each will make about a pint of syrup, enough to flavor about four liters of soda, depending on how sweet you like it. Add half a teaspoon of tartaric or citric acid, a natural preservative available online or at home-brew shops. The acid will bring balance, clarity and a Sour Patch tang to these sweet syrups, and more importantly, help them keep in the fridge up to a few months, a trick I learned from Katie Loeb, bartender and cordial tinkerer at the Oyster House in my hometown of Philadelphia.

Bring the water, sugar and acid to a boil with your flavoring agents, then simmer 15-20 minutes and cool completely. Herb or spice syrups like mint, chamomile and cinnamon only need to be strained, preferably through a cheesecloth-lined sieve. Ditto for syrups involving juicy berries and cherries; over the heat, these fruits will bleed as willingly as Fangtasia patrons, so there’s no need to puree. A blender makes quick work of the less acquiescent fruits: melons, pineapple, pitted peaches and plums, apples and pears, etc. After they’ve cooked and cooled, puree these syrups on high for a silky consistency. Use the syrups immediately in soda water, and keep the leftovers in the fridge. It’s that easy.

Starting with this basic recipe, you can customize your syrups with anything in the garden and pantry. Cardamom? Jasmine tea? That bergamot bush you planted and now have no idea what to do with? It all plays. The beauty of homemade soda syrups is that they’re very forgiving. You almost can’t mess them up. But before you get simmering, just keep these tips in mind:

But really the best advice is to experiment and have a spoon handy. At-home soda auteurs should apply the same wisdom honored by the best chefs: Taste as you go.

Start with the base syrup recipe of 2 cups water + 2 cups sugar + ½ teaspoon tartaric acid (adjusted to the above guidelines), then add: