Elderflower Fizz with Crème de Cassis

2012 vintage

I love this time of year when you can gather up stuff growing in a hedgerow and make booze. It's always interesting and exciting waiting to see if it turns out.

I made elderflower champagne two years ago and I still have some. It's really delicious. Light, sparkling and fantastic on a hot day to mix with other drinks, particularly Crème de Cassis.

The best purchase I ever made though are the correct bottles. (See picture). You can either save these, usually lemonade comes in them or buy in Ikea or from an on line home brew company. They keep the fizz in and prevent souring or moulding.

Recipe
20 elder flower heads
500g sugar
100ml white grape juice
2 lemons
4.6 litres of cooled boiled water
1 x 5g sachet of champagne yeast (optional)

Gather up the elder flowers when in full bloom and in the morning when the sun is shining. If you gather late in day or in dull or wet weather they give off a strong whiff of cat pee.

You need about 20 with as much of the stem/stalk removed as possible. Stalks give a bitter after taste. Use a fork or a sharp scissors to remove the flowers.

Put them in a large cleaned and sterilised bucket with a lid.

Add half the sugar and stir it around the elder flowers. Leave lightly covered with lid for a few hours. This gets the smell and flavour to imprint on the sugar.

Add the cooled boiled water (cooled to body temperature or until you can comfortably hold your finger in it), juice from the lemons and the lemon skins, the remaining sugar and the white grape juice. Give the whole thing a good stir to dissolve the sugar. Lightly cover with lid to prevent dust and moulds falling in and put somewhere cool overnight.

Next day put about a teaspoon of the yeast into the mix and stir well. I find it's better not to add the whole sachet but you can if you wish. It just means it will be more alcoholic.

Leave in the bucket for a week stirring every day. At this point you can either transfer by straining the liquid through a double layer of muslin to a demi-john with a bubble trap and continue fermentation in it. I didn't do this as I hadn't got one two years ago. I just put it into the spring top bottles and every few days opened them cautiously to release some of the carbon dioxide. If you don't do this you may have explosions.

You need to do this religiously every few days for a few weeks or until you get less of a violent reaction and the bubbles do not rise with quite such ferocity to top. At this point you can transfer to a cool dark garage or unheated room to leave it to continue fermenting.

(If you ferment in a demi-john transfer to bottles by straining though muslin again or siphon into bottles when the bubbles in the bubble trap have slowed right down).

Every method or recipe I read said it doesn't keep. I made the one pictured in 2012 and it had no champagne yeast in it. I can tell you it does. And it tastes a lot better now than when I first made it. I think the secret is to have the right bottles and to ensure everything you use is clean and sterilised.

I serve it chilled with some of my homemade crème de cassis. But it's also lovely on it's own.

Beech Leaf Noyau

I must confess I had never heard of this before but when Dee from Greensideup recently posted a picture of a glorious brown liqueur that she had made last year, I was intrigued. I Googled it straight away.

I just happened to glance out the window and notice that lovely lime green beech leaves were beginning to unfurl. I had to find a recipe fast as you need to use young leaves. The recipes were all very vague but that doesn't bother me.

I just gathered up as many leaves as would fit in this lovely Nicholas Mosse jug. It's just over a litre capacity. I then put just the leaves (remove stems) and covered with gin. Seal it up with some cling film and leave for three weeks. 



I admit I left mine longer than three weeks. More like five.

I strained the liquid off into a clean jug and gathered the leaves up and gave them a good squeeze. The recipe I was following was based on using a full 75cl bottle of gin. I had used up ends of bottles but typically forget to measure what I actually used. I guestimated it was half a bottle so I halved the other ingredients.

Make a sugar syrup. If using full bottle of gin it's 225g sugar in 300ml water. Heat and boil for a few minutes. Cool.

Add 200ml brandy to the gin with the cooled sugar syrup. Pour into a clean, sterilised bottle and store.

It says in the recipe it can be drunk neat or as a mixer. I imagine it needs a bit of storage before using it. I intend to experiment with different mixes.

I will keep you posted.