Rhubarb is one of the things seems to grow really well at the Pickle Farm with little or no input from us. Even the recent flooding which left the entire veggie garden was under 20 cms of water and killed everything else didn’t deter the rhubarb. We are always on the look out for new ways to use rhubarb, so when I came across a recipe to make a sparkling rhubarb drink, we had to try it!
This recipe is from Sally Wise’s book, A Year in a Bottle, which is full of very doable recipes and practical information about preserving. We’ve varied it only slightly, and my kids call it Rhubarb Fizz rather than the slightly more refined ‘Sparkling Rhubarb’ that Sally uses.
Rhubarb Fizz Recipe
875grams of rhubarb
875g of sugar
2 lemons
160ml white wine or cider vinegar.
18 cups of cold water
Wash and chop the rhubarb into fairly small pieces. Scrub the skins of the lemon clean and chop into chunks. Throw the rhubarb, lemon (skins and all) and all the other ingredients into a clean, food safe bucket (we used a regular plastic bucket) give it a bit of a stir and cover loosely with a tea towel. Leave it to sit somewhere safe and cool for 48 hours, then strain and pour into sterile bottles. Make sure you use bottles that can cope with the pressure of the fizz building up. We used old champagne bottles with new stoppers that The Father Figure had bought a long time ago when he was dabbling with wine making.
Store the bottles in a safe, cool place and they’ll be ready to drink in about 2 weeks. Be very careful when transporting or opening the bottles, the fizz builds up and they can go off with quite a pop!
The Rhubarb Fizz is such a lovely satisfying pink colour and it tastes very sweet and lemony…. almost like old fashioned pink lemonade. It was so easy to make that we made a double batch and bottled them up with home made labels to give as Christmas presents.
You can find the free printable labels here. There is a set in colour and a set in black and white for the kids to colour in!
We are quite keen to try our hand at making different varieties of ‘fizzy’ fruit drinks. Does anyone have any recipes or ideas to share?
Oh my! How delightful. And it just so happens that I have an excess of rhubarb that my hubby has been asking me to do something with. I was thinking jam, but now I’m thinking rhubarb fizz. Ooh, thanks so much for sharing this. xx
This looks so delicious! I love rhubarb and the lemony, sweet flavour is right up my alley! In fact I could think of nothing better right now with lots of ice and a twirly straw!
“lots of ice and a twirly straw”
Ah… you are my kind of woman!
As a by-recipient of RF I approve, make more! It was scrummy and disappeared very shortly after openning :-)
That sounds like such fun to make Kate. Looking forward to giving it a try. I have also been meaning to try my hand at making lemon cordial – have you made that before?
No we’ve never tried making lemon cordial because we struggle to grow lemons here. I think it’s just too frosty in winter maybe?
That look SOOO Yummy! And the bottle too!
The kids and I had lots of fun drawing and designing the bottle labels, printing them and colouring them in!
Yes, it’s an activity it itself! How do you stick the labels on? Are they special ones or just paper?
we just printed them on regular paper and used a glue stick! lol (and yay my comment reply plugin seems to be working!)
HA! It is! Which one is it? I like.
Loved the Rhubarb Fizz. More please.
I have the a good lemon cordial recipe courtesy of Pennyroyal Raspberry Farm if Planning Queen would like it.
wow that is pretty cool.. fizz!?
i never knew you could make rhubarb in a drink, I love it in jelly or in combination with vanilla pudding, on cake etc..
I don’t even like fizzy drinks (and am keeping my son clear off commercial sodas!) but that’s something I’d really love to try :)
You should give it a try, it really was so very easy and remarkably fizzy too! Though it is VERY sweet so I am not sure it is any better (or worse) than commercial fizzy drinks, though I guess no artificial flavours or colours or chemicals?
good point… since my pregnancy with almost preggo diabetes, I actually even like my (real) juice with about 30 – 50 % water. but i obviously get my daily dose of fizzy and sugar from being addicted to Mother/caffeine so can’t really talk like a health guru really..
but rhubarb juice or fizzy is certainly something I would buy on a market or from the side of the street. I am just too LAME to do stuff like that myself.. O_o maybe I grow into it one day.. :)
Hi Kate i would love to try this, one question though when you were bottling up what sort of new stoppers did you use, can you get get a new cork one back in there, or use those sorts that u put in if you dont finish the bottle and come back to it later. Do you know what i am rambling about?
You can buy new stoppers for the bottles at any home brew shop… or some super markets have them too. They are a little ceramic stopper with a rubber bit on them and a metal clip that attaches them to the head of the bottle. Hope that helps!
I made this for christmas 2011 and it was a hit I have now got some more rhubarb ready to pick and I am going to make another batch. Very refreshing.
Thanks very much for sharing this recipe here. I’ve just bottled my first batch and just wondering whether anyone puts the rhubarb pulp to a good use?
Hi there,
I have tried making the fizzy lemonade in Sally Wises book but it went all wrong. I infused the lemons in the 3.5 cups sugar/200ml applie cider vinegar/20 cups water for 2 days. Then poured into bottles to leave for 12 days. There were already bubbles after 2 days and I had to keep letting gas escape so they wouldn’t build up too much. I decided to try the drink after a week and it tasted like vinegar… yuk!! Do you know what I did wrong?
Love Kirsten
I am by no means an expert but from reading I wonder if something in your process was contaminated with the vinegar bacteria. If you clean with vinegar even a tiny residue can ruin your fix, or any odd bacteria on the lemons, or in the bottles etc?
The drink does get fizzy quickly but we’ve never let any fizz out early… a good bottle with a decent stopper should be fine. We’ve only ever had one spontaneous explode which we had left sitting on the kitchen bench for weeks… and even then it just popped the top off the bottle and made a big mess, no broken glass or anything.
Just a total stab in the dark as every time we make this I am always amazed at how well it works!
I have made rhubarb wine ages ago and the wine is in plastic PET
bottles. They have been stored in the fridge for at least three years and I am wondering if the wine will still be safe to drink. It has a nice pink colour and is fizzy.
Can any one help?
I’m sorry… I have no idea about wine! But I am guessing if it has not turned into vinegar it should be safe to drink? But that is just a wild guess!