Wild Fermented Floral Soda Champagne

1st picture: spruce tips  2nd picture: spruce tip ferment  3rd picture: lilac ferment  4th picture: rose petal ferment 5th picture: elderflower ferment

These floral soda champagnes are so lovely, delicious, effervescent, and refreshing. They are full of probiotic content from the wild fermentation process of the flowers and berries you are using. I have had so much fun preparing these and being creative with many different edible flowers that are in season. These drinks would be beautiful to serve at a garden party or dinner for guests, as well as for yourself and family too.
I believe you will love making these and please let me know which creations you come up with too!

Only uses edible flowers and herbs in your wild ferments. Some ideas for you would be roses, lilacs, meadowsweet, elderflower (use flowers only and as little stem as possible because of slight toxicity), spruce tips, ginger root, turmeric root, chamomile, hawthorn, dame's rocket, violets, tulip tree flowers, tulip petals, lavender, dandelions, hibiscus, pansies, violas, daisies, sunflowers, clover, calendula, anise hyssop, Japenese honeysuckle, marigolds, and mums. Make sure that the flowers you are using are completely pesticide free! Do not use flowers grown from commerical growers or from the grocery store because these are usually highly laden with pesticides and chemicals.

You may also use berries too instead of flowers or use them in combination. Blueberries, strawberries, wineberries, blackberries, hawthorn berries, raspberries, or any other edible sweet berry can be used...again make sure they are free of pesticides.

Do not wash your flowers or berries before using in your ferment because of washing off valuable wild yeasts that could prevent the fermentation process.

In the video, you will see I do a 2nd ferment process to get my soda champagne extra effervescent. This is completely your decision, this step does not need to be done but it does create a superbly fizzy drink.

You can also add flavor to your drinks as well. When I made my rose petal ferment, I added 2 leaves of rose geranium in with the rose petals to give it an extra rosey taste. It was absolutely delicious and very rosey indeed! Get creative and use different herbs, berries, and flower combinations to create a unique flavor combination.

Recipe:

Into a 50 oz glass jar with a glass jar with an airtight lid (link below), fill jar 1/4 full with your choice of edible berries, flowers, and/or herbs. Use flowers or herbs that have a sweet or slightly sweet taste for your drinks.

Add the juice of 2 freshly squeezed lemons and 1 sliced organic lemon, 7 TBSP of organic cane sugar, and fill with filtered water to top of jar, leaving 1-2 inch headspace at the top. I always leave a large slice of lemon to place on the top to act as a weight to press down the flower petals or berries on top. Close jar.

Check on daily (or several times daily). Your ferment should start bubbling within 2-3 days, maybe sooner or later, depending on how sweet or how many wild yeasts are on your flowers, herbs, or berries. I try to leave my ferment go for an extra day after there is substantial bubbling.

Example, I made a spruce tip ferment this spring from our spruce trees when the new growth was blooming. It took almost a full week to have substantial bubbling for this recipe.

I then made a rose and a lilac ferment, and it only took 2-3 days for these ferments to be really bubbly. I believe that the sweet floral flowers ferment faster because of more natural sugars in the flowers than in the spruce/conifer trees. They both worked and were both incredibly delicious but had different fermenting times.

Please remember if you choose to do a 2nd ferment, burp your bottles every 3 hours (no longer)! Only leave them out on the counter in the swingtop bottles for 8-12 hours, no longer. If you forget to burp these bottles, you could have a huge mess on your hands when opening the bottle. Trust me, this happened to me many times and I don't want you to make the same mistakes I have made. Set an alarm on your phone to remind yourself to take care of your bottles...you will be thankful! Refrigerate after this time...refrigeration greatly slows down the fermentation process.

Below are the 2 links for the jars I used and recommend in the video. Both the glass jar with airtight lids and glass swing top lids are included.

Have fun and enjoy your beautiful floral sodas this summer!