Fine Spring Sipping - Elderflower Cordial

                                  Elderflower cordial (and elderflowers)

I saw an elderflower tree in full bloom beside the road in Governors Bay last Wednesday. I screeched to a halt and immediately harvested 40 elderflower heads, in order to make a double batch of elderflower cordial. This is the most delightful non-alcoholic drink of late spring and early summer.
(I will tell you about the most delightful alcoholic one that involves wild herbs next month, when the sweet woodruff is ready to pick.)

Elderflower cordial is very cheap and easy to make, and you will be able to enjoy at least forty or fifty 250ml drinks for the price of one bottle of commercial elderflower drink. The elderflower season starts now and goes to early December. It is possible to keep drinking the cordial into February if you freeze some, as it freezes very well.  If gathering elderflowers from beside the road, be sure to wash the flowers well. Also be sure to identify the tree correctly, as the flowerheads look rather like rowan flowerheads (which smell rather unpleasant, and I am sure would make a nasty cordial).

If you live pretty much anywhere in the South Island you have a good chance of finding wild elderflower trees, as they grow like weeds. If you live in the Waikato (or for all I know other parts of the North Island) you will probably have to buy your own fancy variegated tree from a garden centre, since there seem to be none in the wild. At least, considerable searching in and around Hamilton last November by myself and my friend Shiv (we were trying to impress a friend of his who had recently been to Denmark and come back raving about the elderflower cordial they serve there) turned up only a very few variegated trees which had clearly been planted in hedges and gardens (but were luckily flowering on the street side, from whence they could be harvested).

Elderflowers are also used to make elderflower 'champagne' - a lightly- fermented fizzy drink, which is quite delicious. However it is a one-two week process to make it, so if you want a fizzy elderflower drink fast, dilute the cordial with soda water rather than still water.

ELDERFLOWER CORDIAL
(makes around 350 ml of cordial)

Ingredients

20 elderflower heads, washed in cold running water
1 ½ C cold water (hot water makes the flowers/cordial go brown)
1 ½ C sugar
1 ½ t citric acid


Method

Lay the flower heads on a chopping board and strip the flowers from the heads using the tines of a fork.
Put the flowers in a jug with the cold water, and leave to stand 8-24 hours (covered).
Strain the elderflower-scented water into a clean jug.
Add the sugar and citric acid, and stir well, until dissolved.
Strain the cordial into screw or swing top glass bottles that have been sterilised by filling with boiling water.
Store the cordial in the fridge for 5-6 weeks; in the freezer for 5-6 months.
To serve, dilute to taste with water or soda water. Add ice and/or a slice of lemon or lime.