Mint soda and root beer from herbs in your garden
I show you how to make a mint soda and root beer from herbs grown in your garden. Plus an option to make your own wild yeast.
Mint soda:
Prep time: About 15 minutes total.
Ingredients:
- 1 quart glass canning jar (plus 1 extra to strain the liquid into)
- Fresh mint
- Raw Honey, about 1/3 cup
- Unchlorinated or distilled water (Don’t use tap water or it will interact with the yeast)
- 1/8 tsp yeast. I usually use champagne yeast. (do not use bread yeast)
- Flip top bottle
These recipes were adapted from: The Wildcrafting Brewer: Creating Unique Drinks and Boozy Concoctions from Nature’s Ingredients:
Step 1: Gather mint, preferably fresh mint. Enough to fill about 25% of the jar.
I added candy cane mint that I harvested from the garden. The candy cane mint that I have is the strongest peppermint that I have tasted, and really smells and tastes like candy canes! (minus the sugar)
You can add other herbs (see below for some suggestions).
Step 2: Add warm, not boiling, unchlorinated water to about a little more than half of the jar (you will add some more later).
Put the lid on the jar and let it sit for 4 or more hours, or even overnight.
It will look like this:
You can add cold water and do a cold infusion but it will need to sit longer, maybe for a day or two.
Step 3: Strain the mint tea through a strainer into another jar.
Step 4: Add the raw honey and about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of unchlorinated water to a pan and heat, stirring until the honey is mixed in. This is your sugar water.
Add the honey water to the mint tea.
Step 5: Add 1/8 tsp of yeast to a flip top bottle. Pour in the tea and honey water mix. Close the flip top and let it sit somewhere at room temperature.
Step 6: Let the bottle sit for 12-24 hours. You may want to quick burp it after 12 hours. (you don’t want it to blow up, although that is unlikely).
When it seems like it is carbonated enough, put the bottle in the refrigerator to chill, as well as slow the yeast.
Once chilled, enjoy!
Other herbs and suggestions for the mint soda:
You can add other herbs and ingredients to get different tastes:
- Squeeze a lemon into the completed mint tea, before fermentation. Or add dried lemon balm to the tea before steeping.
- Add a bitter herb for a taste offset. Horehound, Dandelion root, or Mugwort are suggestions. I added dandelion root to the mint soda in the picture above.
Root beer:
Instead of mint, use the above steps with these ingredients to make root beer:
- Add Star anise (the main flavor in root beer), sarsparilla root, licorice root, and a little wintergreen (if you have some).
- Some people add fennel (but I think that the fennel overwhelms the flavor).
- Add some grated ginger for a sweet type of zing.
- Steep like above, strain, then add the honey water and yeast.
Some of these herbs you may have to buy. It’s even better to use herbs that you grow yourself.
The key is to experiment to find out what you like.
I use this champagne yeast:
You can also make your own Wild Yeast:
- Fill a pint glass canning jar 25% with blueberries or elderberries. These berries have wild yeast on their skin. Elderberries seem to give the best results but they are only available once a year, in season. (You can also use elderberry flowers in the spring/summer).
- Perpend used elderberries this year for a wild yeast to make vinegar and it was fantastic and unique.
- Add honey/sugar water using the steps in the recipe above
- Stir and cover with a coffee filter and the canning jar ring.
- Stir 3 to 4 times a day with a clean spoon and recover with the coffee filter.
- After 2-4 days you will see bubbling. That is the wild yeast.
- Smell it. As long as it doesn’t smell bad you are good to go.
- Strain and add 1/2 to 3/4 cup of the bubbly liquid to your soda or mead to use this wild yeast. Then let it ferment some more.
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