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Tag archives for Elderflower

Sipping Your Way Through Sweden: 6 Non-Alcoholic Drinks You Have to Try

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I know this might seem like a bizarre topic for a post, but I’ve realized that when I have friends visit me here, I tend to end up in a grocery store with them, where I take them by the elbow and steer them towards the cooler sections. “Try this!!” I demand, a half-crazed look in my eyes. “It will blow your miiiind!”

I don’t know what it is that makes these drinks so much better than their counterparts in the United States (that being my main frame of reference), but maybe it has to do with higher standards for food quality and a lower tolerance for artificial additives. Coca Cola, for example, is still flavored with sugar in Sweden, while the US version has been sweetened with High Fructose Corn Syrup since 1984.

In any case, these drinks might not stand out to you on a quick visit to Sweden unless someone recommended them to you, and it is well worth stopping by a supermarket or convenience store to try them.

In order of awesomeness, here are the non-alcoholic drinks you have to try when you’re in Sweden.

1. Brämhult’s Juices

Juice is good and all, but Brämhult’s juices are so good that they practically transcend the category. Never before have I opened a container of juice to have it taste exactly like the fruit it advertises, but fresher, thicker, and more flavorful. These juices are incredible. The raspberry (“hallon”) fruit drink is one of the best juices I’ve ever had in my life, and I don’t understand how Brämhult’s achieves that kind of freshness in a plastic bottle.

My favorites from Brämhult's! Raspberry, Blueberry-Black currant, and Orange-Strawberry. Photo: Bramhults.se

The picture above shows three flavors I like, but there are many more to choose from, including orange, blood orange, clementine, carrot, apple, grapefruit-orange, orange-raspberry, orange-mango, apple-raspberry, lemonade, and strawberry-lime. They also have smoothies, but I haven’t tried any of those yet… keeping it old-school.

2. Pucko Chocolate Milk

I don’t know if this is true all over the world, but the ready-made chocolate milk that you buy in the United States is strange tasting. It’s got this weird, powdery-dry aftertaste, almost like it was made with chocolate powder but wasn’t mixed well enough or the proportions were off. It’s not that good.

What to look for. The bottles on the left are the originals; the cartons on the right are low-lactose. Photo: Pucko.se

Pucko, on the other hand… Well, Pucko is like drinking a liquefied chocolate bar, but diluted with milk. “Why… is it… so good??” I ask myself, gasping for air after chugging an entire bottle. (Just kidding. I am far too ladylike to chug. I take delicate, mincing sips of everything I deign to lift to my lips.)

To put it simply, Pucko gives me faith that a secret herd of magical chocolate dairy cows is hidden somewhere in Sweden. I can only imagine the sugar-haze my childhood would have been if we had had such a tasty drink at our disposal. As a testament to its long-standing high standards of deliciousness, Pucko been around in Sweden for almost 60 years now, surviving numerous owner changes and buyouts. All this despite the fact that the word “Pucko” actually means “idiot” or “dummy” in Swedish. I mean, really. Who wouldn’t want a nice big glass of idiot?

Pucko! It'll make your kids cuter AND improve your tennis game. Photo: Pucko.se

3. Saft of any kind, but especially elderflower

Sweden, besides being the land of one thousand hair dressers, is also the land of one thousand berries you have never heard of. These berries are then turned into drinks and jams and ridiculously good fruit tarts, and you have no idea what it is that’s going into your mouth, but you’re ok with it.

“Saft” is one of the drinks that often result from a day out in the woods picking berries or flowers. In English, you can call it a concentrate or a cordial, depending on how where you’re from, and it is so, so good. You can read about my adventure making elderflower saft here, and you can find a boatload of elderflower saft-based drinks here.

My favorite is elderflower, which is, in my opinion, the most refreshing drink in the whole world to have on a warm summer afternoon. There are a lot of other flavors, though—black currant, red currant, pear, peach, cherry, rhubarb, raspberry, and strawberry, to name a few. Black currant is my second-favorite after elderflower.

WARNING: Do not try to drink saft out of the bottle! I repeat, do not drink saft out of the bottle. It has to be mixed with water—sparkling or still—or with the adult beverage of your choice.

4. Flavored Water

When I left the US almost two years ago, flavored waters had just started to become popular, but they always tasted a little chemical-y to me. It wasn’t lemon, it was lemon-oxide-bitterness. It wasn’t lime, it was limmonium-sour. Maybe they’ve improved over the past couple of years, but if not, the people responsible for mixing the flavors should hop on the next plane to Sweden.

So many Ramlösa flavors to choose from! From top left to bottom right: Original sparkling, pineapple, grapefruit-orange, citrus, pomegranate, strawberry-lime, mango, rhubarb, wild strawberries, black currant, watermelon, and still water. Photo: Ramlösa.se

A blonde Swede in a white coat will invite the hapless Americans into his laboratory and chuckle at their cluelessness. “Watch and observe, my little grasshopper,” he’ll say with only the slightest hint of an accent as he takes out his wand and starts chanting in a language that sounds nothing like the YouTube videos of the Swedish Chef that the Americans watched to prepare for the meeting…

Ok, ok, just kidding about that bit, but these flavored waters are seriously good, and they come in the best flavors ever. There are two top brands competing for the flavored water market, Ramlösa and Loka, and maybe it’s this rivalry that is responsible for the awesome taste combinations. My new favorite is Watermelon from Ramlosa, but rhubarb is really good too, and the Pineapple Smash and Coconut flavors remain to be tasted…

5. ProViva

ProViva is most like a fruit juice, although the consistency is somewhere between that of juice and a smoothie, and it’s called “Your Stomach’s Best Friend” (at least by ProViva marketing executives). Moreover, it was invented in Lund by Lund University Hospital researchers, which makes the people around here especially loyal to it.

Scientifically-enhanced fruit juice. Photo: ProViva.se

Apparently ProViva not only tastes good, but it also has some crazy mixture of special bacteria that promotes healthy digestion and calm unhappy stomachs. Like fruit juice, but even better for you! I don’t think this is being exported yet, but if and when they start, it will become a super health craze and earn a million gazillion Swedish crowns. You heard about it here first.

6. Real Coke

In my natural environment (the US), I am a die-hard Diet Coke fan. Oooh, the acrid aftertaste! Aaah, the bitter sweetness! Mmmm, the certainty that its artificial sweeteners will give me cancer!! Plus, regular Coke is sickly-sweet. Ick.

In Sweden, I am all for the real Coca-Cola, calories be damned. As I mentioned earlier, it’s made with real sugar, and it’s not too sweet. Diet Coke doesn’t exist here, and Coca-Cola Light is just disgusting. Seriously, people, what did you do to it?

Word to the wise about the Coke situation in Sweden—if you order it in a restaurant, you will get one bottle in a glass or one trip to the soda fountain and that is it. Free soda refills do not exist here.

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That’s it! If you have more Swedish drink suggestions, leave them in the comments!

Kate Reuterswärd - Expat

September 2, 2011

Nostalgia, Hybridity, and the Zen of an American Brunch in Sweden

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In Sweden, my friend groups are predominantly Swedish instead of being made up of fellow expats. There are, however, a few notable exceptions, including my friend Steve from Michigan.

Steve is a special kind of American expat, because he is the most crazy mix of integrated and not integrated that I have ever seen or heard of in my life. Swedish friends, Swedish job, Swedish roommates—but until earlier this summer, he could hardly speak a word of Swedish. And thank goodness he’s that way, because while we love our lives in the midst of the Swedish masses, sometimes we need to join forces for a little Americana.

Have Bisquick, will travel. NOTHING CAN STOP ME NOW.

Enter the American brunch.

To celebrate summer, to celebrate glorious travel plans, to celebrate a treasured weekend tradition, we (plus one of Steve’s Swedish roommates, M-Lou) threw ourselves a brunch to be proud of.

Elderflower mimosas make work go more quickly.

While a love of brunch is obviously not limited to Americans (see: Brunch Stockholm), I would argue that our particular brunch traditions  have elevated it beyond its basic definition as a half-breakfast, half-lunch meal around mid-day. Firstly, the range of options is staggering. Secondly, the amount of food is staggering. (Both of which are reasons why most people stagger home from a successful brunch outing.)

What did we have at our brunch? All the American classics, but with a Swedish twist.

Bloody Mary with a Chilean-Swedish-Barcelonan touch = very happy brunchers.

American pancakes two ways: with lingonberry jam and with honey and fresh fruit! Mimosas with elderflower cordial! Super-crispy bacon made from Swedish pigs! A pitcher of Bloody Mary, made spicy and with orange juice by a Chilean-Swede-Barcelonan transplant! Coffee brewed to Swedish levels of intensity! And then a few favorites we didn’t mess with: hash browns a la Kate, scrambled eggs a la Steve, fruit salad a la M-Lou.

Holy moly, Captain America in Sweden.

Brunch was delicious. We ate and drank and listened to music, watched the cats play, talked about summer travel plans and enjoyed the sunshine coming in through the window. Post-brunch staggering ensued. We tried to ease the strain of our overstretched stomachs by drinking coffee and listening to Motown. For some reason, it seemed appropriate at the time.

A SMORGASBORD, I TELL YOU!! Groaning tables, over-full plates, and a Michigan-shaped pancake for Steve and me. (I'm from the West side, he's from the East side.) YUM!

As I slowly made my home, I thought about all the brunches I have been to at my house in the States or at restaurants, with family and with friends, to celebrate special moments and to commiserate about our hangovers. Our brunch may not have been the typical American fare you’d find in the United States, but it satisfied our need to be nostalgic for home. Even better, by becoming an American-Swedish hybrid, it reflected the state we find ourselves in today: a little of this, a little of that, a mix of all the places and people we love.

Kate Reuterswärd - Expat

August 19, 2011

When eating flowers out of the garden is not just for unruly kids.

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I don’t know how else to put this, but I’m sitting at my kitchen table drinking some kind of crazy flower-concentrate that I made myself from flowers I picked off a bush. A bush that was outdoors. Like, I found the bush in nature, not the grocery store.

I’m pretty sure that I was taught not to eat things I picked outside when I was younger.

It was probably my mom who told me that. Or my kindergarten teacher. Or my babysitter, or the next door neighbors’ mom, or some other adult-ish authority figure.

I’m pretty sure that I was told I would get sick and die.

But here I am, though, ingesting large quantities of this delicious, fresh-tasting elderflower concentrate/cordial/syrup (translations vary… in Swedish it’s “saft”), and I don’t think I’m dying. At least not yet.

See this flower? I ATE this flower. Check it out, close up and IN THE WILD. Photo: Kate Wiseman.

I think I’ve said before that I didn’t know what to expect when I moved to Sweden almost a year ago, but I’m sure that I didn’t expect to get all touchy-feely with the great outdoors. I mean, I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Män som hatar kvinnor, for those Swedes who are following along). I was imagining some sort of futuristic, possibly dystopian society—probably monochromatic, but definitely cold, sterile, and unwelcoming.

Mmm, not so much.

This doesn’t go for everyone, obviously, but as a foreign observer, the average Swede seems so much more in touch with nature and so much more knowledgeable about plants and flowers than practically anyone I know in the United States.

Take that with a grain of salt, obviously. I wasn’t exactly the “let’s go hike the Appalachian Trail for the next five months of my life” type in the first place, and I grew up in the suburbs. But Lund could not be called “rural” by any standard, and people here who are my age actually know how to go out in the woods and find stuff that you eat.

Baby Adam is getting a head start on that whole "loving nature" thing. Photo: Kate Wiseman.

I didn’t even know that people still did that in this day and age. I thought it was just like reality tv-travel adventurer maniacs who did that. Apparently not.

And so, of course, I want to learn! Last fall, I got to go mushroom picking with some of my friends—definitely one of the highlights of my year. Holy cow, I ate the mushrooms we picked, and I didn’t die. Now that summer’s here, fläder (elderflower) was my next target.

Off we went to a public park, a motley crew: my sister, visiting from the United States, my boyfriend’s sister, her son, and my boyfriend’s mom, all armed with scissors and plastic bags with which to collect the flowers. Then it was back to the house, to clean and clip the flowers before mixing them with lemon slices, sugar, citric acid, and boiling water.

It's as easy as 1, 2, 3. Really. Photo: Kate Wiseman.

The mixture has to sit for 5-6 days in a cool, dark place, and then it’s time to drink up! Since it’s a concentrate, a little goes a long way… usually a 6:1 ratio of water to saft, depending on how strong you want it to taste.

Want to make your own? I KNEW IT. Here is Malena’s finest flädersaft recipe (if you’ve gotten this far in the post, you’re totally getting the Swedish treatment).

Ingredients:

40-50 sprigs of elderberry flowers

3 lemons

1.5-2 kg sugar (1.5 kg if you’re planning on freezing it)

60 gram citric acid, often sold in the US as “sour salt”

1.5 liter boiling water

Instructions:

Wash the lemons and slice them as thinly as possible. Rinse the flowers and cut them off of their stems.  Put them in a large jar or pot in alternating layers.

Boil water and mix the sugar in. Take the water off of the heat and add the citric acid. Then slowly pour it over the flower-lemon layers.

Store the mixture in a cool, dark place for 4-6 days, stirring it up a couple of times a day. Strain mixture through a cloth into a clean jar and keep in the refrigerator or freeze.

That’s it! This makes a lot, and like I said, you mix it with something else to drink it… it can be sparkling or still water, champagne, a delicious gin cocktail… the sky’s the limit! Go Swedish nature, yeah!

Kate Reuterswärd - Expat

June 15, 2011