Pine Needle Soda

Making your own soda can be super easy AND nutritious!

DID YOU KNOW? Pine needle soda can have more vitamin C than a glass of orange juice! And it is packed vith Vitamin A! Way healthier than Sprite, that's for sure! 

Drink for a lightly fizzy vitamin boost, or use in your next cocktail!

Here is the video from my instagram where I show you the steps.

*Disclaimer- make sure to PROPERLY IDENTIFY your tree from which you are removing the needles from. Most Pines are great for this recipe, but there are some toxic lookalikes (such as some of the Yew family). If you need help identifying your tree, there is a lot of information online to help with identification.

I used White Pine.

Identifying the needles: They're long and in clusters of 5.

Identifying the Bark: The younger treeswill be smooth in texture and greenish grey. Not to be confused with Red Pine which looks similar, but has a slight red hue. The older White Pines' bark will start to become rough in texture with layers of scales, and can have a reddish brown hue.

Identifying the Pinecones: They are cylindrical and long.

Here is a great resource for assistance with identification.

--------------------------------------------------------

What You'll Need:

Pine Needles (I used White Pine)

A Swingtop Bottle

Filtered Water

Sugar (or honey)

Here's How:

Step 1: Snip off the woody ends of your pine needle clusters.

Step 2: Rinse the needles if you desire. I gave mine a quick look over, and didn't see any foreign contaminates. You can of course rinse if you'd like. I opted not to, because the needles themselves have naturally occurring yeast on them. That is what assists in the fermentaion process that we are about to embark on.

Step 3: In your sanitized swingtop bottle, start by inserting your pine needles, just as many as you can loosely fit into the container. No need to shove as many as possible. The first time I made this, that is exactly what I did, but the more I made this recipe I realized you can make WAY more soda with way less needles.

Step 4: Pour in about 4 Tablespoons of sugar of honey. A funnel works great for this step. If using honey, I highly suggest using a chopstick to assist the yoney into the narrow opening of your container.

Step 5: Fill your bottle with filtered water. I use water from my Berkey system.  Make sure to leave about 1-2 inches of headspace from the top.

Step 6: Secure the top of the bottle and give it a good shake to make sure the sugar is mixed with the water. Leave on your countertop for about 3 days. Make sure to burp your bottles (pop off the top) a MINIMUM of once every 24 hours.

Step 7: While burping your bottles at least once a day, check for desired fizziness. This should be around day 2 or 3. Once if it how you like it, simply keep in your fridge for 2 weeks. Just make sure to burp the bottles in the fridge every few days.

Congratulations! Use this fizzy healthy soda in your next cocktail, or just by itself!