• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Scandicuisine
  • Recipe categories
  • Finnish recipes
  • Finnish culture
  • Swedish recipes
  • Swedish culture
  • About Scandicuisine
    • Freelancing
menu icon
go to homepage
subscribe
search icon
Homepage link
  • Recipe categories
  • Finnish recipes
  • Finnish culture
  • Swedish recipes
  • Swedish culture
  • About Scandicuisine
    • Freelancing
×

Home » Finnish recipes

Sima-Finnish mead, a fermented lemonade

Published: Oct 30, 2021 · by Cecilia Hoikka · Affiliate links are marked with an *asterix

Jump to Recipe Jump to Video Print Recipe

This is a simple and easy Finnish recipe to make fermented, refreshing lemonade. It is made from lemons, sugar, and yeast.

Mead is traditionally made in Finland on the first of May, this is the Finnish labor day called Vappu. This fermented lemon soda takes 3 days to be ready. This low-alcohol drink can be enjoyed as a refreshment for summer days or at parties.

2 bottles of golden color lemon mead and glass.

What does Sima taste like?

A sweet refreshing drink with slight fizziness. Sima is flavored with lemon and you can taste the lemon quite strongly since it has peels and juice. The yeast gives a slight yeasty flavor but overall it is a fresh drink. You should not drink the sediment in the bottom of the bottle since it tastes yeasty. If brown sugar or honey is used, they give their own tones to the drink.  

Ingredients

water, lemons, sugar, yeast.
  • Boiled water
  • Lemons
  • Sugar. White or brown sugar can be used. Brown sugar gives a brownish color and a more "caramel" taste.
  • Fresh yeast
  • Raisins

Other ingredients you can add and flavor your mead.

There are several other flavorings you can use in your mead. One popular drink is rhubarb mead.

  • Berries. You can add raspberries or strawberries for a berry flavor.
  • Fruits. Instead of lemon, you can try out grapefruit. Added orange gives a more sweet flavor.
  • Herbs. Mint or lemon balm are good herbs to add to your mead.
  • Flowers. Dandelions are traditional Finnish flowers to add to your mead. Use only the yellow parts of the flower, other parts are bitter.
  • Vanilla bean.
  • Cinnamon stick.

How to use honey instead of sugar

If you want to use honey instead of sugar, you need to have 400 grams for 8,5 pints of water. This is about 1 and ¼ cups of honey.

Free Recipe E-Book

Swedish holiday recipes

Thank you!

You have successfully joined our subscriber list.

.

Instructions

  1. Peel the lemons, slice them and press the juice. Add the lemon juice and peels to a small pot.
  2. Add in also the sugar and 3 cups of water.
  3. Bring to boil, so the sugar melts.
  4. To a big pot or bucket, add the rest of the water and the sugar-lemon water from the small kettle.
  5. When the water in the bucket feels lukewarm, you can add a small piece of yeast. Cover the bucket with cloth or paper, and let rest overnight. If you use instant yeast, add it at 42 C or 108 F so it wakes up.

  1. The next day pour your mead into glass bottles and use a sieve to strain out the lemon peels. Add 3-5 raisins to each bottle and transfer them to the fridge.
  2. When the raisins rise to the surface, your mead is ready. This takes 2-3 days.

History of Sima

This Finnish lemonade, Sima, mead, is actually a drink developed by the Vikings. Then it was made with honey and believed to give magical powers to the one who drank it.

Sima in history had a larger alcohol content, it was even more popular than beer in the middle ages in Finland.

In the 1700s, it became more of a summer drink. The ingredients were expensive since it had lemons, and became more of a drink for wealthy people. In the 1800s, sugar became more popular in this drink.

Alcoholic beverages were banned in Finland from 1919-to 1932. This is when Sima became more popular to make since it was not classified as an alcoholic drink and people were encouraged to drink Sima instead of champagne.

Source: Wikipedia.

decorated mead bottle with image.

Here you can see a Mead bottle we decorated for a wedding anniversary party. This was made with brown sugar. Bottles were reused.

Other Finnish dinks recipes

  • Red currant juice
  • Lonkero-long drink
  • Cranberry long drink

Often asked questions

Does Finnish Sima have alcohol?

Alcohol content can rise up to 0,2-0,8 per mille.

Can you use dried yeast to make Sima?

Yes, use 1 teaspoon for 4 liters, 8,5 pints. Add the dried yeast in 42-degree water for it t activate.

What is Finnish mead traditionally served with?

If served on labor day Finns serve this drink with donuts and tippaleipä, deep-fried funnel cakes.

Why do you add raisins to Mead?

When you add a few raisins in your bottle and they float up to the surface you know your drink is ready. This means the drink has fermented and developed Co2 and you have a nice fizz.

sima lemonade in glass and bottles.

Finnish Mead-Sima

A refreshing sweet fermented lemonade
5 from 1 vote
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 15 mins
Cook Time 10 mins
resting 1 d
Course Drinks
Cuisine Finnish
Servings 5 bottles

Equipment

  • Big pot or bucket
  • 1 smaller pan
  • Glass bottles with airtight cap.

Ingredients
  

  • 1 gallon water ( 4 litres)
  • 2 lemons
  • 1,5 cups sugar or brown sugar
  • 1 pea size piece of fresh yeast
  • 1 tablespoon raisins. 3-5 pcs in every bottle.

Instructions
 

  • Peel the lemons, slice them and press the juice. Add the lemon juice and peels to a small pot.
  • Add in also the sugar and 3 cups of water.
  • Bring to boil, so the sugar melts.
  • To a big pot or bucket, add the rest of the water and the sugar-lemon water from the small kettle.
  • When the water in the bucket feels lukewarm, you can add a small piece of yeast. Cover the bucket with cloth or paper, and let rest overnight.
  • The next day pour your mead into glass bottles, use a sieve to strain out the lemon. Add 3-5 raisins to each bottle and transfer them to the fridge.
  • When the raisins rise to the surface, your mead is ready.

Video

Notes

Store your bottles upraised, since the bottom of the bottle gets a thin layer of yeast sediment and you don't want this to mix in the drink. 
If you store the mead for several days in the fridge, be sure to open the caps once in a while. Otherwise it gets too fizzy and it can explode when opened.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

More Finnish recipes

  • Brita cake
  • brown dessert in blue flower bowl with white heavy cream.
    Mämmi-Finnish malted rye pudding
  • three white bowls with strawberry soup
    Finnish Strawberry soup-Mansikkakiisseli
  • rice porridge on blue plate with milk and cinnamon.
    Finnish rice porridge

Please share this content!

28 shares
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Not actually a mead

    May 03, 2022 at 6:28 am

    Mead uses honey using other sugars as your primary source of sugar just makes it Hooch. maybe research the recipes next time.

    Reply
    • Cecilia Hoikka

      May 03, 2022 at 7:56 am

      Yes, Mead was always made with honey in history, this is though how Sima is made in Finland nowadays and people search the drink with keyword mead. Newest trend is to make it with a sourdough starter instead of yeast. There are many variations of Sima. As I have known the word hooch is would be pontikka in Finnish, illitly distilled liquor that has higher alcohol content. Sima as we make it today only has like 0,2% alcohol.

      Reply
  2. Jared M

    October 21, 2022 at 10:30 pm

    Is there a way to make this more alcohol - like raise the alcohol content to about 10% or so

    Reply
    • Cecilia Hoikka

      October 22, 2022 at 10:15 am

      In theory you should use more sugar, and let it brew at room temperature for a longer time. You could use different type of yeast, brewers yeast. The yeast type matters a lot. Also the brewing is best made in a plastic barrel with water lock. Sorry, don't have any recipe for this since I have not made it. Found a Finnish blog post that you might want to check out. http://aatoksenaatokset.blogspot.com/2018/04/sima-2018-resepti.html

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Hi, I'm Cecilia. I want to share Scandinavian and Nordic recipes for you who want to connect with your Nordic heritage and learn to make delicious, simple Scandinavian food and learn about the food culture.

More about me →

Popular

  • flatbreads with cheese and butter.
    Typical Finnish breakfast
  • a large beer in glass in sauna
    Finnish beers
  • three beer bottles cooling and grill in background.
    Finnish alcohol culture
  • a part of the finnish food triangle recommendations.
    Do Finnish people eat healthy?

Footer

↑ back to top

About

  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • Terms & Conditions

Newsletter

  • Sign Up! for emails and updates

Contact

  • Contact Cecilia at [email protected]

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Copyright © 2022 Scandicuisine

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings.

Scandicuisine
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

3rd Party Cookies

This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.

Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.

Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!