Recently I have gotten some cocktail recipes with elderflower liqueur, sorry if you are seeing this outside of June/July when it is best to pick the elderflower heads to make your own liqueur. There are brands like St.Germain elderflower or Bols Elderflower liqueur here in Ireland. This liqueur is very versatile and could be used to soak a layer of sponge for a dessert. So back to the cocktail now.

Ingredients:

• 25ml Vodka
• 25ml Elderflower liqueur – check notes
• 1sp Ginger Syrup
• 1tsp lemon juice
• Prosecco

Use a fluted or highball glass

Steps:

1. Add everything except Prosecco into a shaker with ice.
2. Give a good shake and strain into your glass
3. Top up with Prosecco

Notes
To Make your own Elderflower Liqueur

• 15-20 heads of elderflower
• 1 large lemon, cut into rounds
• Bottle  of 70cl Vodka – I got the Aldi vodka, Saint Germont
• 100g sugar
• Large wide open mouth jar. I use the 1/2l Kilner jars

1. Try to pick the heads in the morning, earlier the better, before the day gets warmer. Also on a dry day and make sure it has been dry beforehand as well.
2. When you are picking, I sometimes have a coat hanger with me in order to get some of the out of reach heads and pull it down and have a scissors to cut the head. Also bring someone tall is an option.
3. I bring a box and lay the heads into it and not a bag as it will just damage the delicate flowers.
4. When at home, you need to remove the flower heads from the stems. The stems are bitter and carry toxins, so remove as many as possible, don’t worry if you miss some. I use a small scissors or people use a fork to pull off the flowers. It is time consuming but worth the end product so stick it out and put on some music.
5. Divided the flowers into 2 jars with half the lemons.
6. Add the sugar, I prefer it less sweet as other additions in drinks etc will add to the sweetness. Split into the jars.
7. Add the vodka. To get the flowers completely submerged, place in a small bag and blow air in and close or if you have a ballon that you can fill lightly and place in. This prevents the flowers from oxidising and urning brown. I placed a large lid in and had a jar filled with water in the top. Some that poked up turned brown but it is fine. You could shake it each day and open and push down any flowers.
   Another tip is to place the lemon slices on top to keep the flowers submerged.
8. Leave in a dark place for 2weeks. I wouldn’t go further than 4weeks as the delicate flavour can be lost if left longer.
9. Strain through some muslin to get the flowers out and squeeze any juice from muslin bag then.
10. Decant into the bottles that you’ll be storing the liqueur. Voilá, you now have elderflower liqueur.
11. I do have a second cocktail recipe using my ginger syrup and elderflower liqueur.