18/06/2026
Time for elderflowers to be blooming. You can make elderflower tincture/ extract, elderflower oil or you can make Elder fritters, Elder flower syrup or this wonderful Elder flower cordial that tastes like fizzy Elder lemonade. Take some time to go out and smell the Elder flowers
Recipe: Elderflower Champagne - a delicious summer drink I make annually. Like lemonade, fizzy, with elderflower taste obviously. Once friends taste it, they want gallons the next year. Remember elder is a faerie and nature spirits tree. be respectful.
Ingredients
2 gallons water
5 cups sugar (I think I do 4)
8 large elderflower heads (I pick the flowers off of the green stem; the main one anyway..not the tiny ones the flower umbrels on)
4 Lemons
4 tablespoons mild white wine vinegar
Mix in a nonmetal bowl....glass is nice or plastic if you want.
Method
Boil the water and pour on the sugar to dissolve it.
Cool and add the elderflowers, juice of the two lemons, slices of the other two and the vinegar.
Cover with a cloth and leave for a day.
Strain with a fine sieve or muslin cloth, squeezing the flowers as you do to release more flavor.
Store in screw top bottles.
Elder flower has natural yeast. It won't start fermenting until under pressure in the bottle. You won't see or hear it fizz in the bowl; it won't bubble; do not add yeast! If you taste it after it sits before you bottle it, it will taste like a flat sweet elderflower drink. Bottle it up, (screw top brew bottles). when you do open it, slightly open and you'll hear the psst..do it over the sink or outside. By this time, the natural yeasts from the flowers will have worked in conjunction with the other ingredients, and you will get a lovely, fizzy summer drink.
It will be ready in about 10-14 days .I have read stores for a month but I actually had some I made at Midsummer and kept in the refrigerator in glass bottles (Frap size or iced tea) and drank the last of it in the late fall.
