Recipe: Wild Fermented Elderflower Soda
- Words by Peppermint
If you’re looking for the ideal refreshing drop to take you right through the hotter months, this homemade elderflower soda might be just the ticket! Taken from Nick Ritar and Kirsten Bradley’s permaculture book Milkwood (which contains pretty much everything you need to know about growing, foraging and down-to-earth living), it’s a delicious recipe that’s guaranteed to quench your thirst and impress your pals. Hurrah!
Ingredients
2-3 elderflower floret heads
2 litres (70 fl oz/8 cups) unchlorinated water
1 heaped tablespoon light, raw honey
3 tablespoons whey (the clear liquid sitting on the top of plain yoghurt will do)
Method
Remove the large stems from the elderflower heads with scissors. Some people remove all the stems, but we don’t bother, and have happily consumed this drink for years.
Fill a 2 litre (70 fl oz/8 cup) jar three-quarters full with the water and add the honey, stirring to dissolve. Add the whey and then the elderflowers, stirring them all around.
Place the uncapped jar somewhere warm, where you will pass it multiple times a day. Lightly cover the top with a cloth to prevent critters getting in. Whenever you pass the jar, give it a stir to submerge the elderflowers – they will whirl around and then rise back to the top.
Within 2–6 days, depending on your room temperature and the wild yeasts in the elderflower, the mixture will start to bubble. Taste it and see if it’s fizzy yet. If yes, ta da – you’ve made elderflower soda. If no, leave it a little longer. Once it’s done, strain off the solids.
Now you have a decision to make. You can bottle and chill the soda, which will have a very light fizz, or you can bottle it in swing-top glass bottles or plastic bottles and leave them on your kitchen bench to let the fizz build for a day or two. The pressure will build up, so be careful when you open the bottles.
TIPS
The longer you leave the soda to ferment, the drier it will become as the yeasts eat all the sugars. It will also become more fizzy, slightly alcoholic and potentially explosive when opened, so be careful.
We prefer to make this soda fresh in small batches, and drink it with a light fizz. If you’d like to add a little fresh mint or lemon balm at the bottling stage, go for it.
This basic recipe can be used to make all kinds of wild fermented fruit sodas. We’ve made blackberry, rhubarb, peach, nectarine, apple and more. You can also ‘backslop’ some liquid from one batch to the next to help get the fermentation started. There’s a whole world of sweet, fizzy DIY sodas to discover – experiment and enjoy.
If you can’t get hold of whey, a tiny pinch of champagne yeast or normal bakers’ yeast will have a similar effect. Or you can leave it out – the elderflowers and the honey will create their own ferment in time, it will just take a little longer and possibly be a bit more alcoholic.
EXTRACT FROM ‘MILKWOOD’ BY NICK RITAR AND KIRSTEN BRADLEY, MURDOCH BOOKS, $45.
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Look, I don’t want to make anyone panic but IT’S DECEMBER!!! If you’re planning to give homemade gifts, you’re going to have to act fast. …
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“In the 1940’s, Norwegians made and wore red pointed hats with a tassel as a form of visual protest against Nazi occupation of their country. Within two years, the Nazis made these protest hats illegal and punishable by law to wear, make, or distribute. As purveyors of traditional craft, we felt it appropriate to revisit this design.”
Crafters have often been at the heart of many protest movements, often serving as a powerful means of political expression. @NeedleAndSkein, a yarn store in Minnesota, are helping to mobilise the craftivists of the world with a ‘Melt The Ice’ knitting pattern created by @Yarn_Cult (with a crochet pattern too), as a way of peaceful protest.
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Raise those needles, folks – art and craft can change the world. 🧶
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"The most important shift is moving from volume-led buying to value-led curation – choosing fewer, better products with strong ethics, considered production and meaningful stories. Retailers have real influence here: what you buy signals what you stand for. At Life Instyle, this means using the event to discover and invest in small-scale, planet-considerate brands that align with your values and your customer’s conscience. Consumers don’t need more things; they need better things, and retailers play a key role in selecting, contextualising, and championing why those products matter."
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8 Things to Know About January 26 - from @ClothingTheGaps:
Before you celebrate, take the time to learn the truth. January 26 is not a day of unity it’s a Day of Mourning and Survival for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
It marks the beginning of invasion, dispossession, and ongoing colonial violence. It’s time for truth-telling, not whitewashed history.
Stand in solidarity. Learn. Reflect. Act.
✊🏽 Blog written by Yorta Yorta woman Taneshia Atkinson.
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As the world careens towards AI seeping into our feeds, finds and even friend-zones, it`s becoming increasingly hard to ignore.
We just wanted to say that here at Peppermint, we are choosing to not print or publish AI-generated art, photos, words, videos or content.
Merriam-Webster’s human editors chose `slop` as the 2025 Word of the Year – they define it as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.” The problem is, as AI increases in quality, it`s becoming more and more difficult to ascertain what`s real and what`s not.
Let`s be clear here, AI absolutely has its place in science, in climate modelling, in medical breakthroughs, in many places... but not in replacing the work of artists, writers and creatives.
Can we guarantee that everything we publish is AI-free? Honestly, not really. We know we are not using it to create content, but we are also relying on the artists, makers and contributors we work with, as well as our advertisers, to supply imagery, artwork or words created by humans. AI features are also creeping into programs and apps too, making it difficult to navigate. But we will do our best to avoid it and make a stand for the artists and creatives who have had their work stolen and used to train AI machines, and those who are now losing work as they are replaced by this energy-sapping, environment-destroying magic wand.
Could using it help our productivity and bottom line? Sure. And as a small business in a difficult landscape, that`s a hard one to turn down. We know other publishers who use AI to write stories, create recipes, produce photo shoots... but this one is important to us.
`Touch grass` was also a Merriam-Webster Word of the Year. We`ll happily stick with that as a theme, thanks very much. 🌿
