Spruce beer

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Spruce beer is a beverage flavored with the buds, needles, or essence of spruce trees. Spruce beer can refer to either alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverages.

A number of flavors are associated with spruce-flavored beverages, ranging from floral, citrus, and fruity, to cola-like flavors to resinous and piney. This diversity in flavor likely comes from the choice of spruce species, the season in which the spruce ingredients are harvested, and the manner of preparation.

Using evergreen needles to create beverages was practiced in both Northern Europe and North America. Certain Indigenous peoples of North America used the drink as a cure for scurvy during the winter months when fresh fruits were not available, as the fresh shoots of many spruces and pines are a natural source of vitamin C.^[1] It may also have been brewed in Scandinavia prior to European contact with the Americas, but most French and British explorers were ignorant of its use as a treatment for scurvy when they arrived in North America. Jacques Cartier and his explorers were exposed to it as a tea when they arrived in Stadacona in what is now Quebec in 1535.^[2] European sailors adopted the practice and subsequently spread it across the world.