Juniper Honey Soda

This is my take on the traditional Bosnian drink Smreka. Traditionally, juniper berries are gathered and put into a glass fermentation vessel, topped with spring water and enjoyed when full of bubbles. Due to the nature of fermentation, time can vary. In the heat of the summer, this could easily be fizzy within one week. I find that it tends to be closer to 2-3 weeks on my counter. This is a delicious probiotic rich drink. I like the addition of honey, for taste, sweetness, and also for added wild yeasts! Aside from honey being a wonderful food for its health benefits, it is also full of wild yeasts and can be used to ferment things! The little white "bloom" on the juniper berries are also wild yeasts, many fruits have this, it just isn't quite as visible all the time. This is how wines used to be made, and the wild ones still are! Grapes have enough wild yeast to perfectly kick start the wine making process, it just isn't as predictable as the packets of yeast most winemakers use today.

Recipe:

-1 cup freshly foraged juniper berries

-1 cup raw local honey

-6 cups spring water

Directions:

-Put everything into a half gallon glass mason jar

-Put a lid on, shake daily

-Burp daily, which just means to unscrew the lid so that the gasses can escape. Once the fermentation really starts going, this can build up and the jar could get so much pressure that it could burst.

-Once your drink is at the perfect level of sweetness and bubbles, strain and transfer to flip top bottles and put in fridge. The drink will get fizzier the longer you leave it and the yeasts will "eat" the sugars from the honey, so it will become less sweet as the fermentation progresses.

-The fridge just pauses the fermentation due to cold temperatures. If left at room temp the drink will keep getting fizzier.