When life gives you lemons…make Sima!

When we returned from our afternoon on the farm driving tractors, we returned to Anniina’s house. Anniina’s brother stopped of on the way to get some lemons so we could make Sima, which is a traditional drink made for Vappu, May Day.

We began by measuring 250g of Fariinisokeri (brown sugar) and 250g of caster sugar into a large pot.

To this we added 2 litres of boiling water, and stirred until the sugar had dissolved.

To this we added the juice of 1 and a half lemons, and another 2 litres of room temperature water, and then we stirred it all together to make sure all the sugar was dissolved and the lemon was combined.

We then left the liquid in the pots to cool down before we added the yeast. The yeast was in a block form, which I had never seen before, it almost looked like modelling clay. Once the liquid was cool to touch, we added a pea size of the yeast, which was mixed with water to form a cloudy liquid. We then mixed it again and left it to sit.

The Sima is later bottled with raisins and a further teaspoon of caster sugar and left in the fridge to ferment, which give the drink a small percent of alcohol content. The bottles of Sima are usually left to ferment for a week and you must leave the lid of the bottle slightly open and regularly open the lids of the bottles to release any pressure build up inside the bottles. When the raisins float to the top, the Sima is ready to drink!

Anniina is going to bottle and bring some for Kathryn and I to try on May Day, which I look forward to trying!

22/04/2017.