Elderflower Liqueur

Summer is almost halfway through and I just came home from Germany and Poland with a few litres of cheap vodka just for the reason of making liqueurs.
And just in time too!! The Elderflowers are almost all gone now so first thing I do when done unpacking is going out in the garden outside my apartement and cutting myself a few flowers to start with.

I got the inspiration from Elderflower Champagne (which I tried to make and failed miserably oh well, new batch in the making for this year too).

Step 1: Ingredients

I wanted to keep this simple and basic.

So what you need?

4 dl of water
6 dl of sugar
7-8 fresh elderflowers
4 dl of vodka

You can also take the zest from a small lemon if you want a little less sweetness.

a little side note:
Since the flowers are almost all blossomed I took a few extra into flowers and added just to make sure I get the taste right. In the end I had 9 or 10 flowers all together

Step 2: What Now?

So on to the making...

Pour the water and the sugar into a skillet or sauce pan and heat up. Dissolve the sugar while the water is getting up to boiling point and stirring all the time to make it go faster.

Step 3: Add the Flowers

When the sugar is completely dissolved take the skillet of the stove and add the flowers and the optional lemon peel.

Let it stand for 30-40 minutes and let it cool

Step 4: Filter the Liquid

ok our 40 minutes are up!!

Time to remove the flowers and the lemon zest if you added that. And if you want a clear liquid then you can also filter it. I kept it as it is because I like the slightly dirty colour.

Step 5: The Vodka

NOW you add the Vodka to the mix!

Make sure to stir it up properly and then pour the liquid into bottles and then keep them cool!

Step 6: Grandma's Note

Apparently my grandma used to make this when she was way younger!

When not having it after dinner she would add a little of the elderflower liqueur to her salad dressing. Apparently it gives a very summery feeling when served in the late autumn and when the snow starts falling.

Comments

[nuke3ae]

Is this basically an instructable to make St. Germaine (an elderflower liquor)? If so I am very excited.

[Osquar]

Yeah it is, although I didn't know about that liqueur until I had a bartender friend of mine taste it. St. Germaine is much less thick than mine is, but you can solve that by adding a mix of water and vodka till you get the desired runnines. I used a 50-50 ratio.

[Osquar]

I've finally gotten around to compare my liqueur to St. Germain's and my conclusion is that St. Germain's has a much sharper taste of alcohol than mine, might be because it's much stronger, but I prefere my own.
Next is to try out some cocktails and see the difference there.

[Luziviech]

next time, when you're around eastern part of Germany, get to a bigger supermarket like "Konsum" or "Kaufland" - they got "Prima Sprit" here, which is an alcohol specially made as basic for liquors; 69,9 rounds - there are rumors, there exists another type of that stuff in Poland or Czech. It's the relict of sum stuff Made in GDR.
There are several peeps round here, who use Stroh80, a wheat-based korn and I also tried heavier stuff from the pharmacy, but i prefer prima sprit as it got no additional taste and actually 13€/0,7L is a good price, i think.

[Osquar]

Thanks for the tip! :)

[BLASTFEMI]

Elderblossom tea mixes very nice with peppermint & is a natural anti-viral. It works well in flu season. Thanks for the nice recipe. I look forward to trying it. This is the kind of stuff that needs to be in everyone's medicine cabinet!

[AndyGadget]

Just a tip : When you're picking the elderflowers, smell them first.  Most bushes produce the flowers which have that wonderful sweet summery smell, but a few smell of cat pee which will taint the drink.