Sima, the May Day Drink of Finland

Every May 1st, Finns celebrate the coming warm season with a glass of their beloved home brew, Sima. I’m Finnish by descent, but had never had Sima until this year. Now that I know how to make it, I’ve brewed 3 or 4 batches in the last couple of months. (May first, Schmay first.)

Sima is quite possibly the easiest home brew you will ever make. Not only because more than likely you have most of the ingredients in your cabinet already, but also because you probably have all the equipment, you don’t have to be quite as careful about sanitizing as with more involved home brew, and, after fermenting, you only have to wait 8 to 12 hours for it to get bubbly enough to drink.

Sign me up!

Sima is brewed with sugar and lemons, and tastes kind of like sparkling lemonade. It is traditionally served with a special kind of doughnut called Tippaleipä, which is sort of like a funnel cake. The traditional recipe for Sima is a nearly non-alcoholic version (by my measurements it reads out at about half a per cent ABV). I’m including that recipe below, as well as a kicked up alcoholic home brew version which you can do with basic ingredients from your kitchen (this one is about 5% ABV).

Trust me, this will become your go-to drink when the weather gets up to the 80s.

Traditional Finnish Sima

• 4 quarts of water
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 lemons, thinly sliced
• 1/8 tsp active dry yeast
• 4 raisins
• 1/8 cup sugar for carbonating

In a large stock pot, boil the water, then stir in sugars. Add lemon and turn off heat. Cool (use an ice water bath to cool more quickly).

Once the liquid is room temperature, transfer it to a Ball or Mason jar and add the yeast. Cover with Saran Wrap, but make sure to poke a few holes in it so that the CO2 can escape. Allow the mixture to ferment on counter for about 8 to 10 hours. You should start to see little bubbles coming up the side of the jar–good sign!

Sanitize another container (or containers) into which you will transfer the Sima to carbonate. You can do this by running it through a dishwasher, boiling it, or washing it with sanitizing solution. If none of these are options for you (i.e. you live in a tiny studio apartment in New York like my friend International Export Director #1, or you don’t often–or ever–use your dishwasher, like my other friend, Law Student #1), running the container under some blazing hot water from the tap (or boiled on your stove) might do the trick. But I can’t vouch for these strategies since I haven’t tried them.

Take out the lemons and transfer the mixture into the sanitized container with 1/8 cup sugar (I usually boil about 1/8 cup of water to dissolve this before adding it to the mixture). Add raisins. Close the container tightly. In 8-48 hours you should see bubbles collecting and the raisins rising to the top of the container. Once the raisins have risen, it’s done! Pour into a glass and enjoy.

Kicked Up Alcoholic Sima

• 2 quarts water
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 lemon
• 1/8 tsp yeast
• 1/8 sugar for carbonating

In a large stock pot, boil the water, then stir in sugar and honey. Boil until fully dissolved. Add lemon and turn off heat. Cool (use an ice water bath to cool more quickly).

Once the liquid is room temperature, transfer it to a Ball or Mason jar and add the yeast. Cover with Saran Wrap, but make sure to poke a few holes in it so that the CO2 can escape. Unlike the low alcohol version, this will ferment for 10 days on your counter. After the first day, take the lemons out or they’ll start to get pretty funky. The longer the brew ferments, the more alcohol it will get and the dryer it will be in taste. You can experiment to see what you prefer in terms of sweetness vs. alcohol ratio. A rule of thumb is that it produces about .5% alcohol each day.

I like this recipe best after 10 days of fermenting. Any more than that and it gets a bit too dry for my taste, and the yeast flavor comes out a bit too much since it’s no longer masked by the sweetness. Also remember that you probably won’t get more than about 6 or 6.5% ABV no matter how long you ferment for, because there’s only so much sugar that can be converted into alcohol.

After 10 days, sanitize another container (or containers) into which you will transfer the Sima to carbonate.

Transfer the mixture into the sanitized container with 1/8 cup sugar (I usually boil about 1/8 cup of water to dissolve this before adding it to the mixture). Add raisins. Close the container tightly. In 8-48 hours you should see bubbles collecting and the raisins rising to the top of the container. Once the raisins have risen, it’s done! Pour into a glass and enjoy.