Sima (Finnish mead for Vappu/May Day)

Sima, also known as Mead, is a popular drink on Vappu (aka May Day) in Finland and Sweden. You can get it in alcohol or non-alcohol versions. The recipe below is for non-alcohol lemon Sima, which we decided to adapt and add an extra lime. We would have tried making an alcohol version but we started this project about 5 weeks too late! So, maybe we can try again in time next year. I have heard of some more exotic types of Sima, such as lime and ginger, but have no idea what they are like, but I would love to try. Anyway, you will need about a week for this project, no special equipment except a large bucket and some clean empty bottles. Fizzy drinks bottles, wine bottle etc will do, so long as you can seal them with a screw cap or something that will let the pressure out. We tried sealing some old wine bottles with corks and ended up with rather explosive Sima when we opened them. Good luck!

Ingredients

• 8 litres water
• 450 g dark brown sugar (fariinisokeri)
• 600 g granulated sugar (plus extra for the bottles)
• 1/4 tsp fresh yeast
• 2 lemons, sliced
• 1 lime, sliced
• raisins

Method

1. Boil about a litre of water, take off the heat and add the sugar, and stir until dissolved. If you want to alter the the colour of your Sima, you can do so by changing the proportions of brown to white sugar for darker or lighter Sima. Pour into a large 10 litre bucket.
2. Add the remaining cold water to the bucket, stir. This mixture should be lukewarm. If not allow to cool for a bit. Pour a bit of lukewarm water into a cup and mix in the yeast. It is important to remember that yeast is a living organism and cannot tolerate temperatures above 40C - i.e. it will die if you add it to too hot water, then your mixture won't ferment and you will be left with sugary water, not Sima.
3. Add the sliced lemons and lime, stir a bit to mix, put a lid on the bucket. In our case we used a large plate to cover.
4. Leave to stand at room temperature or slightly warmer e.g. an airing cupboard, for 48 hours (the instructions said 12-24 hrs but we forgot to do it then)
5. Now you will need to bottle the mead. You can use any type of bottles for this - we used left over wine bottles from our wine making last year.
6. Add a small handful of raisins and about 1.5 tsp sugar to the bottom of each bottle. Pour in the mead, without the lemons. We used an ordinary sieve and a funnel to make sure we didn't get any pips into the bottles. Seal the bottles but not too tightly (so the pressure from the ongoing fermentation process doesn't build up) and leave at room temperature for 2-3 days (upto a week). You know the Sima is ready when the raisins rise to the surface.