Making Elderflower Cordial from Hedgerow Flowers

The last week of May and the first fortnight of June is one of the great quiet pleasures of the British countryside: hedgerows that were a tangle of green a month ago suddenly froth over with flat plates of creamy blossom, and the whole lane smells faintly of Muscat grapes and warm sugar. Elderflower is the taste of an English summer, and the best of it never makes it to a shop — it comes out of a hedgerow on a dry morning and into a pan before lunch.

First, Be Certain What You Are Picking

Elder (Sambucus nigra) is a scruffy, generous shrub, usually three to six metres tall, common along field edges, canal towpaths, railway embankments and the shadier end of any old lane. Look for opposite, pinnate leaves with five or seven oval, sharply toothed leaflets, and a bark that is grey and corky, deeply ridged on older growth. The flowers are what you want: broad, flattish, slightly domed heads, sometimes the size of a side plate, made up of hundreds of tiny five-petalled florets in a dense cream. Push your nose in — you should get that sweet, slightly heady, almost grapey scent straight away.

Avoid anything with brown, shrivelled or dropping florets, and check the underside of the head as well as the top; you want the whole cluster fresh. Elderflower runs later as you go north: late May in Devon and Kent, mid to late June in Yorkshire, and often well into early July in the Highlands. Higher ground and north-facing hedges hold back too.

Picking Well: Dry Mornings and Clean Hedges

Timing matters more than technique. Pick on a dry, sunny morning once the dew has lifted. Rain and heavy dew wash the pollen off, and pollen is a good part of the fragrance. Midday sun is fine, but blossom picked in the heat can start to wilt in the bag, so take a flat basket or a roomy cotton tote rather than a sealed plastic bag.

• Stay away from busy roads. Verges beside fast A-roads and motorways collect exhaust particulates and grit spray. A quiet lane, footpath or the edge of a wood is far better.
• Avoid sprayed ground. Field margins and verges can be treated with herbicide. If the surrounding grass looks unnaturally bare, walk on.
• Snap, don't strip. Hold the stem just below the head and pinch or snap it off with a short stalk, leaving the rest of the bush to carry on.
• Take a fifth at most. Leave plenty of heads to become the purple-black elderberries that feed blackcaps, thrushes and dormice later in the year.
• Ask if you're unsure. On private land and many nature reserves, picking needs permission. Common land and roadside footpaths are usually fine for personal use.

On the way home, lay the heads out in a single layer on a tray and use them within a few hours. If you can't, they'll keep overnight in the fridge, loosely covered.

A Reliable Cordial Recipe

This makes roughly three litres of finished cordial. It is forgiving, but the ratios are worth keeping.

• About 25 to 30 good elderflower heads — enough to loosely fill a large bowl
• 1.5 litres water
• 1 kg granulated sugar
• 2 unwaxed lemons, zest pared in strips and juice reserved
• 40 g citric acid, from a chemist or home-brew shop

Shake the flower heads outside to dislodge insects — do not wash them, you'll lose the pollen and the scent with it. Snip or rub the florets off the stalks into a large bowl or bucket, discarding as much green stem as you reasonably can; elder stems and leaves are not for eating. Bring the water to the boil, pour it over the sugar in a large pan and stir until dissolved, then pour the hot syrup over the flowers. Add the lemon zest, lemon juice and citric acid, stir, cover with a clean cloth and leave somewhere cool for 24 hours, or up to 48 if the weather is cool and you want a deeper flavour.

Strain through a double layer of muslin or a clean tea towel into a jug, then funnel into sterilised bottles. It will keep for several months in a cool cupboard, and longer in the fridge once opened. Dilute to taste — roughly one part cordial to five or six parts still or sparkling water — and serve over plenty of ice with a sprig of mint.

Bottling, Variations and Other Uses

Sterilise bottles by washing them in hot soapy water, rinsing, then drying them in a low oven for ten minutes. Fill while the bottles are still warm, seal, and label with the date. A little lemon zest or a few fresh mint leaves added at bottling lifts it further.

The cordial is also the base for a summer elderflower spritz, a drizzle over poached gooseberries, or a spoonful whisked into cream for a gooseberry fool. If you have a glut, freeze the cordial in ice-cube trays and drop a cube into a gin and tonic.

Keeping It Safe and Sensible

Only ever use the flowers — the leaves, stems, bark and roots of elder contain compounds best left alone, and unripe berries are not for eating either. Cooked or properly diluted, the flowers are a long-established hedgerow food. If you are pregnant, on medication or trying elderflower for the first time, keep to modest amounts, and never pick from a hedge you cannot confidently identify or one growing on ground that might have been sprayed. Take a friend, wear long sleeves against nettles and ticks, and tell someone where you are going if you're heading off the lane. Do it well and you'll be back at the same hedge next June, with bottles already labelled.