Making Elderflower Cordial from Hedgerow Blossoms

A fleeting harvest worth the wait

By the last week of May, the hedgerows begin to look as though someone has been along them with a bag of icing sugar. The elder, Sambucus nigra, is rarely the most handsome shrub in the lane — sprawling, untidy, often leaning on a fence — but for a fortnight or so it earns its place. Its flat plates of tiny cream flowers, held up to the light in the early evening, carry one of the most distinctive scents in the British countryside: sweet, musky, faintly citric, and impossible to mistake once you know it.

The window is short. Perhaps three weeks in a normal year, less if the weather turns hot and dry, and the flower heads can brown off quickly. Pick in the first flush, when the heads are wide open but the petals still look fresh, and you will get the cleanest, most fragrant cordial. Leave it too long and the scent turns heavy and slightly sour as the plant moves on to berries.

Choosing and picking your blossoms

Where you pick matters as much as when. Elder growing along a quiet lane or the sunny edge of a wood is ideal. Elder beside a busy road, a lorry route, or low on a footpath where dogs are exercised, is not — the flowers catch dust and spray, and you cannot wash them without losing the pollen that carries most of the flavour.

• Pick on a dry, sunny morning, once the dew has lifted. Damp heads go mouldy in the syrup.
• Choose creamy-white, fully open heads with no brown edges and no sign of tiny black insects.
• Snip the whole head with scissors, leaving a short stalk, and shake it gently to dislodge any residents.
• Take no more than a third of the heads from any one bush, so the birds get their berries later in the year.
• Use them the same day. A few hours in a warm car boot will dull the scent.

Never wash elderflowers. If you are worried about dust, give the heads a gentle shake and pick over them by hand instead.

What you will need

This makes roughly three litres of cordial. You will need:

• About 25 large elderflower heads (or 35 smaller ones), stripped of the thickest stalks
• 1.5kg granulated sugar
• 1.5 litres water
• 2 unwaxed lemons, zest pared in strips and the rest sliced
• 50g citric acid — or 30g citric acid plus 30g tartaric acid, which gives a rounder tartness
• A large pan, a big bowl or food-grade bucket, muslin, a funnel, and sterilised bottles

The citric acid is not optional. It sharpens the flavour, balances the sugar, and does much of the work of preserving. It is sold in pharmacies, home-brew shops and many larger supermarkets.

The method, step by step

Put the water and sugar in a large pan and heat gently, stirring, until the sugar has completely dissolved. Do not let it boil hard. Take it off the heat and leave it to cool until it is just warm — hot syrup dulls the flower scent, so patience pays here.

Meanwhile, put the elderflowers, lemon zest, lemon slices and citric acid into your bowl. Pour over the warm syrup, give everything a good stir, and cover the bowl with a clean tea towel or a loose lid. Leave it in a cool place for 24 hours, or up to 48 if the weather is cool and you want a deeper flavour. Stir it twice a day.

Line a sieve with double layers of muslin and set it over a large jug or pan. Ladle the mixture through, then let it drip undisturbed for an hour or so. Resist squeezing the pulp — it releases bitterness. Strain once more if you can see any sediment, then bottle through a funnel, filling to within a centimetre of the top.

Bottling, keeping and knowing when to tip it

Use bottles you have washed in hot soapy water and dried in a cool oven, or run through a hot dishwasher cycle. Swing-top bottles look lovely and hold a good seal; plastic screw-top bottles are safer if you plan to freeze the cordial.

The sugar and citric acid will keep an unopened bottle in a cool, dark cupboard for six months or more, but this is not a preserve that lasts forever. Once opened, keep it in the fridge and use it within four to six weeks. Fizzing, a rising cloudiness, or a film across the surface means wild yeast has got in — tip it out and start again next June.

For longer storage, freeze the cordial in plastic bottles, leaving a good 3cm of headroom for expansion. It thaws beautifully and makes a fine midwinter drink when the hedges are bare.

In the glass and beyond

Dilute roughly one part cordial to five parts still or sparkling water, over plenty of ice, with a sprig of mint and a slice of lemon. It is also worth keeping a bottle in the kitchen for other things: drizzled over strawberries, folded through whipped cream with poached gooseberries, or stirred into a gin and tonic in place of the usual tonic sweetness. Some people make elderflower vodka by steeping the heads directly in spirit; others attempt elderflower champagne, which relies on wild yeast and is a far more temperamental business.

Make a batch this week, label it with the date, and put a bottle or two aside. Long after the flowers have gone over and the berries have blackened, there is a great deal of quiet satisfaction in opening a bottle in January and tasting the last warm afternoon of early summer.