Foraging for Alcohol

The source

We have two elder trees at the end of the garden, one on our side of the fence and one in the access track behind it (unsurprisingly, this track is never used for access). This means that for the last couple of years I've made elderflower cordial and this year I decided to make elderflower liqueur. I have made a range of different fruit flavoured liqueurs from our back garden (rhubarb vodka, rum gin, raspberry vodka) and failed to drink most of them, so I decided on a smaller batch this time - a mere 500ml of vodka. And as you can still find elderflower, I thought I'd blog about it before it was too late.

Elderflower

You need about 10 heads of elderflower per 500ml of vodka. Make sure they're bug free and cut off the bigger green stem so you mostly just have the flowers. Put that in a suitably large jar, along with the zest of half a large lemon, or all of a small one, and cover with vodka. Try to make sure that the jar only just holds it all, as the elderflower apparently goes brown due to the air otherwise. Leave in a cool, dark place for 2-4 weeks. Mine has been in a cupboard for 3 weeks, so tonight was when I moved on to the next step.

Ready to steep

Make a sugar syrup - 50g sugar to 50ml water - and allow it to cool. Strain off the vodka through a muslin (or a clean teatowel if you're classy like me) and add half the syrup, then test to see if you think it's sweet enough. I honestly had no clue what my recipe expected of me at this stage - was I meant to just have a teaspoon of vodka to check it?

I tried a teaspoon, it tasted of flowers and vodka, so I chucked in the rest of the syrup. It still tasted of flowers and vodka. Put into a sterilised glass bottle and leave in a dark place to mature for two months - apparently. I will be doing that, but I'll also be using it to make a Hugo for #ConfinedCocktails tomorrow.

It tastes better than the yellowy appearance suggests...