Finnish Black Currant Leaf Mead – Louhisaaren Juoma

Food

This 4 ingredient homemade drink tastes strongly like blackcurrant and makes great syrup for cocktails of all kind. It can be served as home made soft drink when mixed with sparkling water, but we also love it when mixed with plain water for refreshing thirst quencher.

Historical summer drink from your garden

Louhisaaren juoma – Drink of Louhisaari Manor has been around decades in Finland. It’s historically famous drink (military leader and statesman Mannerheim was a big fan) and there’s several different recipes for it. This recipe uses citric acid to give the drink bit of a kick without the more time consuming yeast. All in all the drink takes only 24 hours to get ready. The mead is best when it’s made with the first black currant leaves of the summer.

You’ll need:

5 litres of water

4 litres of fresh black currant leaves

25 grams of citric acid

500 grams of sugar

1. Start by heating the water until it boils. Pour the hot water onto clean leaves (we use big pot for this) and add citric acid. Mix it up, cover the pot with a lid and leave to steep the next 12 hours.

2. Strain off the leaves and add the sugar. Once the sugar is dissolved the drink is ready.

3. You can use the drink in cocktails, as a soda syrup or mix it with water for a cool drink or use as it is. For long time preservation it’s best to store the drink in the freezer.

Our recipe is easy and a quick one. The more traditional black currant leaf mead is made with the help of yeast to achieve the sparkling effect. Maybe we should try the traditional one at some point and report the differences? How about that!

Love,