I love this recipe, it’s so simple but makes a really delicious and refreshing drink, naturally carbonated. Plus it contains natural beneficial probiotic bacteria from the fermentation.

Tangerine Drink

Ingredients to make 1 litre – just multiply up to make larger quantities (I usually make 4 litres)

• 250ml freshly squeezed tangerine juice
• 1 teaspoon raw honey or 2 dried figs
• pinch of salt
• water (approx 750ml)

I usually make this with honey, but I experimented with dried figs as an alternative. I’m sure you could experiment with other sweeteners, although honey and figs both have natural yeasts which probably help with the fermentation.

Method

Squeeze the tangerines. I like to add the pulp too. Stir in the other ingredients. If using honey stir until it is completely dissolved. If using figs, chop into quarters. You can remove the figs after 3 or 4 days if they have floated to the top. You can eat them but they will have given all their flavour to your drink!

Top up with water, but don’t fill right to the top.

I like to use a kilner jar (as pictured), this has a rubber seal which allows gasses to escape during fermentation, but doesn’t allow oxygen back in. If you use a jar with a tight seal, you will need to open it every day or so, otherwise it could explode…

Leave to ferment. I turn the jar upside down once a day to mix the contents up a bit, I think this makes it ferment a little quicker. The time depends on temperature, I find usually it is ready in 5 to 7 days. You can tell when it is getting ready as you will see small bubbles, and some of the pulp tends to float to the top as you can see in this photo.

Start tasting it every day, it will constantly change. Once it is to your liking, you can put it in bottles and put in the fridge, this will slow the fermentation down so that it will change less.

Orangeade

Follow exactly the same recipe as above, just substitute freshly squeezed orange juice. Just be careful not to squeeze the orange too hard at the end or you will get some of the bitter oils from the skin in the juice which negatively affects the flavour.

Lemonade – makes 1 litre

I had to adjust the recipe slightly for lemons:

• 200ml freshly squeezed lemon juice (or maybe less, see below)
• 1 tablespoon raw honey
• pinch of salt
• water (approx 800ml)

Note slightly less lemon juice, and 3 times as much honey (1 tablespoon rather than 1 teaspoon). I’ve not tried this with dried figs, but if you want to try I would  try 6.

And the other major difference is fermentation time, it takes much longer. I’d actually given up on this recipe, but tried it again today and found that it is finally ready, almost exactly one month since I made it. (Maybe it has been ready for a while, I’ve probably not tasted it for 2 weeks.)

Actually, I’m drinking this as I write, and maybe 200ml is still too much lemon juice, it is quite acidic in the back of my throat. If I was making this again I might try only 150ml. If yours turns out too strong, just dilute with water when you want to drink it.

Tips and Ticks

Once I tried adding orange zest to the ferment – it didn’t work, it really slowed down the fermentation process and didn’t particularly make much difference to the flavour.

Approximate amount of juice, of course this will vary with fruit size:

250ml tangerine juice = approx 6 tangerines

200ml lemon juice = approx 4 lemons

Oranges are much more variable in size so harder to say, but 250ml is probably somewhere between 2 to 4 oranges.

Let me know what you think if you try this. Any improvements?