Northwoods Soda
fermented young spruce tip soda
If you’ve never nibbled on young spruce tips, oh my gosh. Get outside right now and taste one! Just make sure you don’t take too many from a single tree. Harvest with respect—the trees are watching. 👀
Not only are these little green gems cute, they’re like actual medicine. Like, forest medicine. They’re insanely high in vitamin C, even more than oranges, gram for gram (about 6x more). Which makes sense because they were literally used to prevent scurvy back in the day. They help your immune system, obviously, but they also soothe sore throats, clear out your lungs, and have tons of antimicrobial compounds that make them like natures sanitizer but in a good way, not the toxic kind.
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They’re also anti-inflammatory, so they’re great if you’re dealing with anything chronic or low-grade. And on top of that, they have vitamin A and E, plus minerals like magnesium and potassium.
And they taste like… a citrusy pine forest. Think lemon meets pine tree. In the best way.
So I highly suggest saving some extras in your freezer for the winter months! These will make for some great remedies during cold season.
But not every alternative or preventative remedy is a terrible tasting tincture you have to chase. Sometimes preventive remedies look like… soda :) but like the herbal good forest kind.
I’m going to apologize in advance. To be totally honest with you, I don’t like recipes. In fact, I hate them. I see them more as a tool and prefer cooking and baking by feel.
You see, when you cook and bake by feel that’s when you fall in loving with making food. Because creation—magical creation—comes from being in a flow state. And you can’t be in a flow state with food if you’re following someone else’s recipe. It’s just too robotic.
So instead, I’m going to give you general directions. My goal with all the recipes here on The Northwoods Guide is to guide you into a flow state with food. My hope is that you will find the confidence to try new things or put your own spin on something. Want to add a lime to your soda? DO IT. Want to add some clove? Go for it. Here’s something even scarier… don’t know if you added too much simple syrup? Doesn’t matter. You’ll still end up with great tasting soda! And you can always ferment it longer or dilute it. It’s trial and error.
Once you learn to create by feel—that’s when the magic is made. And in a world where we can ask AI how to do literally anything, if it can’t do it itself yet, I think this skill is needed more now than ever for the sake of humanity and human soul.
With that said, I’m a creator both on and offline. And I’d be lying to you if I said I wasn’t playing with all the latest AI tools. One of my favorites being AI music. I made this song for our Northwoods Soda so maybe you’ll enjoy creating some fermentation magic whilst listening to this. :)
Leave a comment if you enjoyed it. <3
You can also follow me over on Suno to get my Recipe Box Playlist. https://suno.com/s/fcqbRT75plizo2n5
Now, for the recipe.
Northwoods Spruce Tip Soda Guide
First, you’re going to need some glass bottles. These are the ones I have—linked glass bottles. Make sure you wash them well. We don’t want any toxic manufacturing chemicals in our soda.
You want to forage your spruce tips when theyre young, soft and bright green. You should be able to pinch them right off. That’s when you know it’s time. You don’t need much, just a few handfuls.
Now, take those tips and give ’em a little rinse. Then in a pot, warm some clean water (if you have fluoride free water—perfect—otherwise you might to use distilled water and add some minerals to it). I did about a cup of sugar to split across all 6 bottles.
For reference, store bought sodas generally have like 1/4 - 1/2 cup of sugar per bottle.
Since we’re making an herbal soda and have beneficial microbes making the fizz for us we don’t need or want that much sugar so 1 cup for six 16 oz bottles is plenty. I tested it more using 1 1/2 cups and it’s closer to a sweet soda if that’s what you’re going for. But if you want herbal and just a light sweetness just use a cup but you do you and play with it!
Generally though about a cup of sugar for every three quarts or so of water is good if you like it not-too-sweet and botanical forward. Let it cool — don’t pour it hot or you’ll kill the good bacteria on the spruce tips. Drop your spruce tips into the clean bottles. Pour in that cooled syrup water till it’s nearly full and top off with plain water if needed.
Now here’s the trick: I just add a pinhead of sourdough starter to each one. Just a tiny bit to kick off the bubbles. Some people use ginger bug or whey, but I always have sourdough on hand, and it works just fine. To be technical this is basically like Russian Kvass.
Seal them up, give them a gentle shake, and set them somewhere warm but dark for a couple of days. I do about a week. Check them once a day and burp the caps so they don’t pop off from pressure.
When they’re fizzy and smell just a bit wild, perhaps a bit like champagne? Pop them into the fridge. Serve it cold.
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You’ll be making this every year! After doing it once, it’s like a no brainer. Now we can start experimenting with other wild botanical sodas and fermented fizzy drinks. 🌿
Now go make some magic and play!
With love,
Alex
