Home · Recipes · Tarkhuna, fresh tarragon soda
Georgian · Drinks
Tarkhuna, fresh tarragon soda
fresh tarragon · lemon · sparkling
AI-generated photograph
- Total25 minutes
- Prep10 minutes
- Cook15 minutes
- Serves4
Tarkhuna is the bright green tarragon soda every Georgian child grows up with, sweet, fresh and a little like aniseed. Ours is a fresh tarragon syrup topped with sparkling water and lemon, with no colouring and no alcohol.
Contains: none of the 14 allergens, as written. None of the 14 allergens is in this recipe as written. Tarragon, sugar, lemon and sparkling water contain none of them.
Let's cook
- Put the sugar and water in a small pan and warm on a low heat, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Simmer for 1 minute, then take it off the heat and leave it to cool for 10 minutes.
- Pick the tarragon leaves off the stalks. Put the leaves in a blender with the cooled syrup and the lemon juice and blitz for 1 minute until the syrup is bright green.
- Pour it through a fine sieve into a jug, pressing the leaves with a spoon to get all the syrup out.
- Line the sieve with a piece of kitchen paper and pour the syrup through again for a clear syrup. Chill in the fridge until cold, about 30 minutes.
- Fill four tall glasses with ice. Pour about 3 tablespoons of syrup into each, top up with the sparkling water and stir gently.
- Taste and add a little more syrup if you like it sweeter. Put a sprig of tarragon in each glass and serve at once.
Tips
- Blending the syrup cool keeps it green; hot syrup turns the tarragon dull and brown.
- The syrup keeps in a clean, covered jar in the fridge for 3 days. Top up with sparkling water only as you pour.
Swaps
- Less sugar: use half the sugar and add more lemon, for a sharper, more grown up soda.
- Stronger aniseed: add a few fennel fronds to the blender with the tarragon.
Our own recipe. The photograph is AI-generated.
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