Making Elderflower Cordial from Hedgerow Flowers

The hedgerow's finest hour

There is a fortnight in the British calendar when the lanes smell faintly of muscat and cat pee at the same time, and anyone with a bit of foraging instinct starts eyeing the verges. Elderflower season runs roughly from the last week of May to mid-June in the south, arriving a little later in the north and later still in Scotland. Miss it and you wait another year.

The good news is that elderflower cordial is one of the most forgiving things you can make. There is no cooking of fruit, no setting point to worry about, no pectin. You are essentially steeping flowers in sugar syrup, straining it and bottling it. Fifteen minutes of actual work, a couple of days of waiting, and you have a summer's worth of the best soft drink in the country.

Finding elderflower, and knowing it is the right thing

Elder (Sambucus nigra) is a scruffy, generous shrub that turns up in hedgerows, along railway embankments, on waste ground and at the end of allotments. Before the flowers open, the plant is easy to overlook. In bloom it is unmistakable: flat, creamy-white umbels the size of a side plate, sitting on top of a bush that tends to be about head height or a little taller.

• Leaves: opposite each other on the stem, pinnate — five to seven oval leaflets with serrated edges, held in pairs with one at the tip.
• Flowers: tiny, five-petalled, packed into broad flat heads rather than rounded domes. They should smell sweet and floral, not sour or unpleasant.
• Bark: grey-brown and deeply fissured, often with corky lumps on older wood.
• Lookalikes: cow parsley and hogweed also carry white umbels. Hogweed has a domed head, coarser leaves and a distinctly unpleasant smell, and its sap can burn skin in sunlight. If it does not smell lovely, leave it alone.

Pick away from busy roads and from anywhere a dog might have been. Ask permission on private land, and never strip a bush bare — leave plenty of heads for the birds and for the elderberries that will follow in September.

Picking for flavour: the dry morning rule

This is the single most important thing. Go out on a dry, sunny morning, ideally after a couple of rain-free days, once the dew has lifted. Wet flowers dilute the flavour and go off much faster; flowers cut in the heat of the afternoon smell flatter. Aim for heads where the buds are mostly open but a few are still tight, and shake each one gently over the bush to dislodge insects before dropping it into your bag or basket.

Do not wash the heads. A light shake and a check for beetles is all you need — washing knocks out the pollen and much of the scent. If you must, dip them briefly in cold water and shake them dry in a clean tea towel.

The cordial recipe

This makes about 2 litres of finished cordial, which dilutes to roughly 10 to 12 litres of drink.

• 30 to 40 freshly picked elderflower heads, thick stalks trimmed off
• 1.5 kg granulated sugar
• 1.5 litres water
• 2 unwaxed lemons, zest pared in strips and the fruit sliced
• 50 g citric acid (from a chemist or home-brew shop)

Put the sugar and water in a large pan and bring slowly to the boil, stirring until the sugar has completely dissolved. Take it off the heat and stir in the citric acid. Put the elderflower heads, lemon zest and lemon slices into a large, very clean bowl or food-grade bucket, then pour the hot syrup over them. Press the flowers down so they are submerged.

Cover with a clean cloth and leave at room temperature for 24 to 48 hours, stirring twice a day. Longer gives a fuller flavour, but past three days it starts to taste stewed.

Line a sieve with a double layer of muslin and set it over a large jug or bowl. Ladle the mixture through, then let it drip undisturbed for half an hour rather than pressing hard on the solids — squeezing makes the cordial cloudy and slightly bitter. Funnel the liquid into sterilised bottles or, if you plan to freeze it, into clean plastic bottles.

Bottling, storing and making it last

To sterilise glass bottles, wash them well, rinse, then dry them in an oven at 120°C for about twenty minutes and fill while still warm. The citric acid is what keeps the cordial stable, so do not be tempted to leave it out unless you intend to drink everything within a fortnight.

Stored in the fridge, a properly made cordial keeps for several months; without citric acid, treat it as a two-to-three-week project. Freezing is the easiest insurance — fill plastic bottles to about three-quarters, leaving room for expansion, and thaw one at a time as needed.

Beyond the glass

Dilute roughly one part cordial to five parts sparkling water or tonic, over plenty of ice with a sprig of mint and a slice of cucumber or lime. It also makes a fine spritzer with white wine, a surprisingly good sorbet, and a lovely drizzle over poached gooseberries or a plain sponge.

Once you have made a batch, the problem is rarely the recipe. It is that the season is so short you will wish you had bottled twice as much.