A living ferment is still working when it reaches your door. Practical handling from the doorstep to the last inch of the bottle: temperature, pressure, sediment, glass and plate.
Open the box before the coats come off. A living ferment travels cold, in insulated packaging, and it is still quietly working inside the bottle when it reaches your door. How it tastes, how it opens and how long it stays bright are all decided in the next ten minutes.
How to store fermented drinks at home
The storage range for the living drinks is +5 °C to +19 °C, which is wider than most people expect. That is the point. The fridge is the bottom of it; a cool larder, a north-facing cupboard or the step down to a cellar is the top. Both ends are fine. What matters more is that a bottle sits somewhere steady, rather than swinging between the two twice a day.
The hazards are ordinary domestic ones. A sunny windowsill. The top of the fridge, where the motor warms the surface. A car boot in August. The shelf above a radiator in February. Warmth speeds fermentation up, and a bottle that has been warm builds pressure faster than one that has been cold, which you will find out at the moment you open it.
Not everything in the range shares that window. The 100 ml Bacillus subtilis bottle keeps between +5 °C and +25 °C, which is the spore stage doing the work. Read the label rather than assuming the fridge is always the answer. The bottled drinks, though, want cold.
When a parcel arrives, refrigerate it straight away. If it turns up warm, delayed or damaged, the delivery page asks you to get in touch within 48 hours, which is worth knowing before you shrug, put a lukewarm bottle in the fridge and hope.
Why chilled matters for a living drink
Cold is not about comfort here, it is about pace. Fermentation runs faster when it is warm and slows to a crawl when it is cold. A ferment held at fridge temperature stays close to the state it was sealed in: the same acidity, the same carbonation, the same balance of fruit and herb. Left warm, it carries on working. It grows drier, sharper and gassier, and the bottle you eventually open is not the bottle that was packed. The ETRAFLORA drinks are made by fermentation under high pressure, held below 45 °C, and cold storage is simply how you hold that work still.
It is also why the drinks ship chilled rather than by ordinary parcel post. A living food is a food with a clock in it, and cold slows the clock.
How to open a pressurised bottle without wearing it
These bottles are under pressure. The concentrate label puts it bluntly: open very carefully, holding the cork until the gases escape. The same care applies to any of them.
- Open the bottle cold. Cold liquid holds dissolved gas; a warm bottle gives it all up at once.
- Let a bottle stand upright and undisturbed for a few hours if it has been carried in a bag, rolled about, or only just delivered.
- Work over the sink, bottle upright, neck angled away from you and from anyone else in the room.
- Keep a flat palm over the cap or cork and ease it round. Do not pull. Let the pressure out in a long hiss rather than a bang.
- If foam starts climbing the neck, press the closure back down and wait. It will settle. Rushing costs you the drink.
A bottle that has stood cold in the fridge overnight is a docile bottle. One that came off a warm doorstep an hour ago is not.
Why there is sediment at the bottom
A cloudy layer on the base is what an unfiltered living drink looks like. It is the solid part of the ferment — culture, fruit pulp, fines from herbs and spices — doing what solids in liquid have always done. The label says it plainly: natural sediment is normal. A bottle with none at all would be the odd one out.
Rouse it, do not shake it. The labels say shake gently, and gently is the operative word, because shaking a pressurised bottle is how a third of it ends up on the ceiling. Before opening, tip the bottle slowly end over end two or three times, or roll it on its side along the worktop until the cloud lifts off the base and disperses through the liquid. Then stand it still for a minute before you go near the closure.
If you prefer it clear, leave the bottle standing and pour carefully off the top: the last centimetre will carry most of the sediment. Neither way is wrong. It is a texture preference, nothing more.
Glassware and serving temperature
Straight from the fridge, at around 5 °C, a ferment is bracing and its aroma is shut down. Give it five minutes in the glass and the herbs open up. Around ten degrees is where the aroma of something like Fermentum Drink Tarhun becomes legible: tarragon first, then the sweetness, then the herb base underneath. Too cold and you taste the fizz and the acidity and very little else.
The glass matters more than it sounds. A tulip or a small wine glass gathers the aroma at the rim, and is the honest way to taste one of these. A straight tumbler is easier to drink from and lets the carbonation go faster, which some people prefer. Tilt the glass and pour down the side to keep the bubbles; pour straight into the middle to knock them out.
Skip the ice. It dilutes a delicate drink and takes it back down to the temperature where you cannot smell anything. If you want it colder, chill the glass instead.
A litre goes further than a bottle of wine. The Tarhun page counts roughly seven pours to a bottle, which is a small tumbler each rather than a pint.
What to serve it with
Think of these the way you would a dry cider or a good sparkling apple juice: acidic, lightly sparkling, and better with food than most soft drinks are. Pairings that work:
- Tarragon, in Tarhun — grilled white fish, roast chicken, goat's cheese, anything already carrying dill or fennel.
- Hop-like bitterness, in Anti Beer — wherever a beer would go. Salted almonds, charred vegetables, a sharp cheddar, a burger.
- Cherry — dark fruit against fat. Duck, pork belly, a cheese board, the last hour of a long dinner.
- Watermelon — tomato salads, feta, cured ham, anything eaten outdoors in July.
The rule of thumb is the one that governs wine: acidity cuts fat, and bitterness wants salt. A ferment alongside a heavy plate does much the same job as a squeeze of lemon.
How long an opened bottle keeps
The date on the bottle belongs to a sealed bottle. Once the cork is out, the carbonation begins to go and the drink slowly grows sharper. It is still the same food, but it drifts away from the balance it was bottled with. Close it firmly, stand it upright in the coldest part of the fridge, and plan on finishing it over days rather than weeks. Your nose is the reliable instrument here: a ferment that has travelled too far smells markedly more vinegary than the one you opened.
What to do with the last of the bottle
Do not tip the cloudy inch away. It is the most concentrated part of the drink and it earns its keep in the kitchen, off the heat. Whisk it into a vinaigrette in place of some of the vinegar. Splash it into a cold marinade for chicken or halloumi. Stretch it with sparkling water over a chilled glass. Heat changes it, so add it at the end of cooking rather than the beginning.
And if a particular bottle has you unsure, the FAQ covers the questions that come up most often.