As temperatures warm, I’m drawn to refreshing chilled beverages, but most store-bought versions are too sweet, fizzy, or artificial-tasting on my tongue—and the best brands are expensive. So I make own my fizzy beverages instead, to drink as a substitute for soda and mix into cocktails. The one I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon uses spring’s first flush of rhubarb.

Rhubarb grows prolifically in my garden, so this all-natural seltzer concentrate costs me pennies to make. I have full control over the sweetness, as well as the fizziness of each drink, thanks to a countertop carbonation unit. Making my own flavored seltzers also reduces the number of cans and bottles I have to haul to a recycling center. The process takes minimal hands-on time and creates a long-lasting concentrate that flavors a large batch of drinks. I can’t think of any downside to creating this seltzer and similar versions with other fruit.

Learn more about homemade shrubs and syrups and get the complete recipe for Rhubarb-Ginger Seltzer in my column.

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Twice as Tasty

All sorts of fruit make tasty homemade seltzer, from berries to pears. If you have a favorite flavored sparkling water or hard seltzer, you can make your own version by buying its featured fruit and turning it into a concentrated syrup. I prefer to use what I have at hand, shifting from flavor to flavor with my garden’s harvest cycles or pulling homegrown fruit from the freezer.

Seltzer made at home with a fruit concentrate and soda water is just one option. A similar concentrate spiked with vinegar creates a drinking shrub. I included two of my favorites, Strawberry–Balsamic Shrub and Roasted Raspberry–Thyme Shrub, in The Complete Guide to Pickling, along with two other refreshing summertime beverages: Switchel and Tepache, a fermented pineapple drink.

I also use homegrown fruit to flavor kombucha. Small amounts of fresh or frozen fruit and herbs flavor fully fermented black tea–based kombucha in a couple of days. With my first rhubarb harvest each spring, I ferment rhubarb syrup with a black tea scoby and then reuse the rhubarb-infused scoby all summer to create a barely caffeinated, effervescent kombucha.

Here are just a few other recipes on the blog that create concentrates for homemade sodas. You can find more in the recipe index.

• Rhubarb–Vanilla Syrup
• Frozen Strawberry Syrup
• Roasted Raspberry Syrup
• Strawberry-Rhubarb Shrub

You can also learn more about using shrubs and syrups in mocktails and cocktails in this blog post.

Want more Twice as Tasty recipes? Get my books! Click here to order a personally signed, packaged, and shipped copy of The Complete Guide to Pickling directly from me. I also share tasty ways to use pickles in The Pickled Picnic; it’s only available here.