Hey everyone! This is Mason with Mountain Rose Herbs and today I'm going to teach you how to
make smreka. Smreka is a great recipe to make. It's a Bosnian fermented beverage
and I'm always looking for new drinks and foods to introduce in my life.
Bonus points if they're fermented, good for that gut microbiome,
and bonus points if they're simple. Smreka has both of those. This is kind of what it looks like.
It's so delicious. It's slightly carbonated and aromatic from the juniper berries. I first learned
about it from this book Sandor Katz's classic "The Art of Fermentation," definitely worth checking out!
But I learned about it and I was like, "oh, this is super simple to make!" So I start making it
on a weekly basis and I'll kind of show you my process for that, but it could not be easier,
as I mentioned. What you're going to want to do is take a quart mason jar and about
a half a cup to three quarter cups of juniper berries. I don't mind getting my hands in there.
And then about a quart of water, preferably spring water of some sort, and just fill it
up all the way. I like to use some sort of plastic cap that way there's no rust
but you're welcome to use you know a wax paper or anything like that
or one of those air locks. The main thing, though, is shaking it every day
and then what's called burping. So every day you're going to want to... no, sorry not every day, maybe
every four days, every few days or a couple days, just open the cap and release the gases. So yeah,
shake and burp. Shake every day, burp every few days and we're good. So I've actually got
a bunch already over here. This one's been going a little over a month.
So they say that fermenting anywhere from 10 days 14 days all the way to a month.
I typically go for a month. I think I like the carbonation you get from it. I think that the
flavors have a nice amount of time to infuse over that period of time. So yeah, this has
been going for about a month. You'll see that the juniper berries just start to fall to the bottom.
They say that, you know, after 30 days all the juniper berries fall to the bottom.
That's not always the case. These ones are floating still. But yeah, also
important to always date it! Because you'll lose track quickly. So basically I'm going to show you
what I like to do. What I like to do is I like to take... this is a sprout screen,
and get another quart jar, and then you're just going to strain it. Look at that beautiful color!
Okay, basically it's done. You could drink it as is. It's going to have the nice juniper berry flavor.
It's going to have the carbonation. I always like to add some honey or a sweetener of some sort. Maple
syrup will work. You can do sugar if you want, organic sugar. But yeah, I always add honey,
lemon and lime. I think that's a really nice flavor profile. Hibiscus tea would work,
just throwing some hibiscus in there. Gingers... I've done ginger before and that's really pleasant.
I don't know... basically, let's just do this!
So, some nice raw local honey if you can find it.
Just stir that in.
It will take a little bit for it to dissolve.
Then I always do a pinch of salt. I think it adds some nice minerality
and I think it enhances the flavor quite a bit too.
And then, like I said, I like to add some fresh
lemon, some fresh lime.
Honestly, I probably had quite a bit more than that but for the video's sake here we go.
And that's your smreka right there. Let's get a bottle.
I like to funnel it into a fancy bottle like this. Got some spillage going, don't mind me.
There you go! That's smreka. I usually consume this pretty quick to be quite honest. It gives me
a nice pep in my step. You could probably... I mean, it's a fermented beverage, it'll probably just get
more fermented over time. But you'll probably drink it within a week or two is my recommendation.
But yeah, I just gifted one of my buddies the other day with a bottle of this! It's a unique
drink. It's delicious. It's invigorating. It's aromatic. I definitely recommend giving smreka
a try. You could use wild juniper berries but you're going to want to be 100 percent positive on your ID.
So that's why I just like to buy juniper berries from Mountain Rose Herbs. I know exactly what I'm getting.
There you go. Hope you enjoy this recipe and cheers!
This stuff is so good!