Continuing on from my previous post on making cordials and a natural cleaner, it is now time to bottle the Elderflower Liqueur I made.
The original elderflower liqueur recipe that inspired me requires that you soak the herbs in vodka to extract their wonderful taste and benefits. Since I use dried herbs for this I figured that I would lose too much alcohol using this process and chose to use a different technique which is popular in many of the German recipes I read for this. Their method infuses water or sugar syrup before adding the alcohol and that way no expensive vodka gets lost while rehydrating the dried plant material.
Of course I wouldnt be me if I didnt play around a bit with the original recipe so I combined bits of the original with bits from a German recipe I found. So this is the recipe I came up with:
Refreshing Elderflower Liqueur
120g (4oz) dried elderflowers
90g (3oz) dried lemon balm
peel of 1 lemon
2l (2 quarts) boiling water
350g (11 oz) sugar
17g (1/2 oz) citric acid
1l (1quart) vodka
Pour boiling water over herbsand lemon peel, cover and leave to infuse for 24 hours. Strain and discard solids. In a large glass jar (or bowl) combine herbal infusion with sugar, citric acid and vodka. Stir occasionally until sugar is disolved. Bottle & store.
NOTE:
* In theory this is ready to drink straight away and it did taste great but I chose to leave it a couple of weeks before bottling.
* Vodka tends to come in 750ml bottles but I happened to have a litre bottle on hand.
* Next time I will dissolve the sugar and citric acid in the boiling water first. That way I might prevent the odd floaties I encountered, although they did filter out fine.
* I like drinks that are not too sweet and have a bit of a refrehsing tang, if that is not for you you could leave out the citric acid or up the sugar content.
* If you are using fresh plant material you could triple the herb quantities – I know that works in cooking recipes so why not here?
Remember how I made the lemon multipurpose cleaner in the last post? It’s amazing!! I love the scent, the moment I open the jar I have a biog smile on my face. Yes, one is supposed to leave it for 2 weeks before using but I couldnt wait. So after 1 week I tried it when I mopped the floorboard and tiles and it was terrific. Thanks to nellymary from Justlikemynanmade.blogspot.com for this great recipe!
A few days ago I made some rhubarb champagne – which is not alcoholic of from the French region of Champagne – and I am eagerly to taste how it went. If it went well I shall share the recipe with you soon 
Stay Herbal!
AnkeB
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