Making Elderflower Cordial from Hedgerow Blossoms

A hedgerow that gives itself away

From the last week of May into the middle of June, the elder bushes along every lane and railway embankment in Britain do the same thing at once. They put out flat, saucer-shaped plates of tiny cream flowers, and the whole hedgerow begins to smell sweet, musky and faintly of honey — a scent you catch before you see the bush. That smell is early summer in its most fleeting form, and a bottle of elderflower cordial is simply a way of keeping some of it back.

Elder is easy to identify once you know it. The bark on older wood is corky and warty, the leaves sit in opposite pairs, and the flower heads are wide, flat-topped umbels rather than the rounded, domed umbels of its white-flowered relatives. In folklore this is the Elder Mother's tree, the one you were told not to burn or cut without asking. Whatever you make of that, pick with a bit of respect and leave plenty behind.

Picking well: the rules of a dry day

Choose a dry day, and go out mid-morning once the dew has lifted but before the afternoon heat sets in. Rain washes the pollen off the flowers, and the pollen carries most of the perfume — so a wet morning gives you cordial that tastes of very little.

Pick heads that are fully open and still creamy white. If the petals are browning at the edges, or dropping, leave them; if the buds are still tight and green, they will give you nothing. The best heads are the ones with a few small side-shoots of flower still in bud at the centre, which is when the scent is strongest.

• Snip the whole head cleanly with scissors, just below the flower, above a leaf joint.
• Take one or two heads from a branch and move on, leaving the rest for the insects and the autumn berries.
• Avoid busy road verges, sprayed field margins, and the bottom half of any bush a dog might have visited.
• Carry a wide basket or a shallow box rather than a plastic bag, so the heads do not sweat and bruise.
• Shake each head gently to dislodge beetles and earwigs, and don't wash them unless they are genuinely dusty — you would be rinsing the scent away.

Use your flowers the same day if you can. Left overnight in a warm kitchen they begin to wilt and lose their edge.

What you need

This makes roughly two litres of cordial, which is about six or seven wine bottles' worth and will see a household through the summer.

• 25 to 30 large elderflower heads
• 1.5 kg granulated sugar
• 1.5 litres water
• 2 unwaxed lemons, zest pared off in strips and the juice squeezed
• 50 g citric acid — optional, but worth having
• A large pan, a big bowl, a colander, muslin or a scalded tea towel, and clean bottles

The citric acid is not just for tartness. It raises the acidity of the cordial, which helps it keep and keeps the colour pale and green-tinged rather than slowly turning amber. It is sold in chemists and home-brew shops. If you leave it out, treat the cordial as a short-lived thing and freeze or fridge it.

The infusion

Warm the water and sugar together gently until the sugar has completely dissolved, then bring it just to a simmer and take it off the heat. Add the lemon zest, the lemon juice and the citric acid, and let the syrup cool until it is merely warm — about blood heat. This is the step people rush, and it costs them the whole batch. Pour boiling syrup over elderflowers and you cook them, and instead of fresh and floral you get something flat and faintly of hay.

Once the syrup is warm, submerge the flower heads in it, push them down with a plate to keep them under the surface, cover the pan and leave it somewhere cool for 24 hours. Taste it at that point: it should be bright, perfumed and clearly lemony. If it still tastes thin, give it another few hours, but do not go past 48. Beyond that the stalks start to give up a grassy, cardboardy note that no amount of sugar will hide.

Straining, bottling and storing

Line a colander with muslin or a scalded tea towel and set it over a large bowl. Tip everything in and leave it to drip for an hour or two. Resist the urge to squeeze the flowers — it clouds the cordial and pushes out the bitterness you have spent a day avoiding. If there is any sediment, strain it a second time through a finer cloth.

Bottle into sterilised bottles: a hot dishwasher cycle, or washed and dried in a low oven, does the job. Screw-top glass is fine for the fridge, but plastic bottles are safer for the freezer, and leaving a little headroom means they will not split. Unopened and kept cool and dark, an acidulated cordial will hold for months; once opened, keep it in the fridge and use it within a few weeks. In warm weather a bottle may begin to ferment, and a faint fizz is not a disaster — but a screw top that hisses and bulges is one to open outdoors with care. Burp your bottles once or twice in the first fortnight.

In the glass, and a few variations

Dilute one part cordial to four or five parts water, still or sparkling, over plenty of ice. A slice of cucumber, a sprig of mint or a thin round of lemon all suit it, and a jug of it on a hot afternoon is one of the better arguments for a British summer. It is just as good in a tall glass with soda in place of a gin and tonic, spooned over yoghurt, or folded into a gooseberry fool.

Once you have the method, it takes kindly to tinkering. Swap one of the lemons for an orange, or add a thumb of sliced ginger to the warm syrup. A few mint leaves in the steeping pan make a softer, greener cordial. Later in the season you can use the same syrup for elderflower sorbet, or start a bucket of elderflower champagne — but that is a job for a bigger kitchen and a braver cook.