Kombucha. Is it really an alcoholic beverage? It did get Lindsay Lohan busted when she was on probation, so we say yes. Like beer, kombucha makes you feel good inside. Unlike beer, it’s full of probiotics and good bacteria to balance out whatever nasty stuff is going on in your gut. Like beer, it’s an acquired taste—one my ma has skillfully mastered.
Step 1: If you’ve never heard of a scoby, you might be thinking Scooby-Doo. But this giant blob of bacteria has nothing to do with the Mystery Machine. The symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast is essential to your kombucha. Without it, your tea will hardly yield any healthy benefits. It’s called the mother. “You can grow your own from a commercial bottle of raw kombucha with a blob in it,” Mom says. Next, brew a cup of black or green tea, add two tablespoons of sugar and let the mixture cool. Add a cup of the commercial kombucha—with the mother. (We like GT’s brand.) Put the contents in a glass jar and cover tightly with a paper towel and a rubber band. Let this ferment for seven days. A brand new scoby will grow and appear on the top. Oooh.
The Booze Issue
- Tiki time: Fruity drinks and flowered shirts are only the beginning
- Las Vegas booze distributors use education as sales tool
- Ellis Island's Village Pub empire hits that friendly neighborhood-bar sweet spot
- Making kombucha with mom: strengthen your scoby, this is gonna get weird
- Aria created its own world-class cognac and you can't afford it
- The Food-Centric Beers of Moody Tongue Brewing have arrived
- Fine booze pairings for the discriminating fast-food fan
- Surrender to the blender!
- The (Motley Brews) boys are back in (Down)town
- PT's has something brewing for 2016
- The search for sours: learn to conquer the newest trend in craft beer
Step 2: Now that you’ve got your scoby, this is what you’ll use to brew your first batch of ’booch. Boil two quarts of water and pour the liquid into a glass bowl. Add one cup of granulated sugar and stir to dissolve. Add eight tea bags and brew until the tea is cool. Add another one and a half quarts of water and one cup of kombucha (the bottled kind). “Once you get going, you can use the liquid for future batches,” Mom says. Now put the tea mixture in a large glass bottle and put a scoby in each bottle. Cover with a paper towel or cheesecloth and let it ferment for seven to 10 days. The scoby will become thicker and grow stronger with each batch. Yay!
Step 3: After fermentation you can experiment with different flavors. Transfer the liquid to smaller glass containers (Ball jars work well) and add fruits or herbs. Have fun coming up with flavors that please your own palette. Let your smaller jars ferment for two to three days. Once they’re ready for consumption, be careful opening the jars as the carbonation and gas can cause the bottles to break. Open the bottles daily to let some of the gas out to prevent unwanted buildup, and a major mess.
