How to Make Wild-Fermented Pine Needle Soda

You can make your own soda by fermenting pine needles with honey and water. This all-natural, bubbly, citrus-flavored drink will be ready to be consumed in about one week. Learn foraging tips and more in this short, how-to article.

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Foraging is one of my favorite pastimes. During the Michigan winters, foraging opportunities are harder to come by, but there is always one place I can go to collect some wild goodness to brighten my day, our white pine windbreak.

I visit the windbreak when I go to remove snow from in front of my beehives. The windbreak consists of several rows of thirty-year-old Eastern White Pine that stand proudly on the western border of our forty acres. They valiantly filter the prevailing wind and protect our apiary and homestead. For more on using white pines as a windbreak, click here to read my other article.

Not only do the pines provide shelter and oasis, but beautiful foliage for Christmas decorations and the main ingredient for wild-fermented pine needle soda, a tasty treat!

What is Pine Needle Soda?

Pine needle soda is a fermented drink that you can make at home with honey, water, and pine needles. The wild yeast found on the pine needles feeds the sugars in the honey creating carbonation.

This all-natural, bubbly drink tastes a little piney and citrusy. Some people refer to it as “natural Sprite.” My kids like it and it provides us all an extra dose of Vitamin C, which is great for fighting off winter illness!

Pine needle soda is easy to make and will be ready to drink in about one week. Read on for some tips on foraging and my recipe!

Foraging White Pine Needles

You should only use the needles from the Eastern White Pine tree to make pine needle soda because they are safe to consume.

The first step in foraging is to correctly identify the plant that you want to harvest from. If you aren’t confident in your tree identification skills, make sure you use an app, book, or experienced forager to help. It is always better to be safe than sorry. If you aren’t sure about a plant species, it is best not to eat it.

Thankfully, Eastern White Pines are common and easy to identify! They are the state tree of Michigan and grow in well-draining soil almost anywhere. You can easily pick them out by their foliage. They are evergreens with long, thin, green needles that are always grouped in bundles of five around the stem. Also recognizable are their branches, which grow in rings around the trunk of the tree. As conifers, they bear pinecones.

You don’t need special equipment to harvest needles from an Eastern White Pine. You can snap off branches by hand to collect for making white pine soda.

Honey and pine needles laying on a table

Materials Needed for Making White Pine Soda

I ferment my white pine soda in a clear, glass Mason jar with a screw-on lid. You want to use a clear jar so that sunlight can reach the concoction. I use the 200-mesh strainer with a funnel that I have for straining my raw goat’s milk to filter the needles from the soda at the end of fermentation.

Ingredients Needed for Making White Pine Soda

Needles from an Eastern White Pine, left in groups but removed from the stem
2 tablespoons raw honey
Tap water (non-chlorinated)
Lemon (optional)

A full handful of pine needles is all you need to make a quart of pine needle soda, if you are making a bigger batch, collect more! I’m a beekeeper and use raw honey from my hives to make soda. Tap water works fine for fermentation as long as it’s not chlorinated, chlorine will inactive the wild yeast. Lemon can be added to impart more citrus flavor to your soda!

Directions for Making White Pine Soda

Forage needles from an Eastern White Pine tree and bring them home.
Remove the needles from the stem but leave them in groups and place them into your clean, empty Mason jar. I don’t rinse the pine needles because it is the wild yeast on the needles that interacts with the honey to produce carbonation in the soda.
Add two tablespoons of raw honey to the jar.
Fill the jar most of the way with water. You want to leave an inch or two of head space as room for the fermentation process.
Screw the lid on the jar and gently invert and shake until the honey is completely dissolved.
Place the jar in a warm area of your home with access to natural light. I put my jar in the bay window of my kitchen.
Check on the jar daily, you should notice small bubbles beginning to form.
After three days of fermenting in the sun, open the lid of the jar. You might hear a “pop” when you break the seal. “Burping” the jar prevents the gases from becoming too pressurized.
Wait another three days and your soda should be very bubbly and ready to drink.

A Mason jar with bubbly white pine soda ready to drink

Burp the jar again and use a mesh strainer and funnel to remove the pine needles and any sediment from your soda. I put my soda into a fresh Mason jar.
Pour a glass of soda, add ice and lemon if you desire, and enjoy a refreshing drink!
Store the remaining soda in the refrigerator to slow the fermentation process.