Elderflower syrup …. so good!

After we were all gifted with beautiful days of glorious sunshine, many farmers surely took the chance for a good hay harvest. The dry weather is also ideal for harvesting herbs and for preparing juices, including elderberry. The elder bush is one of my favorites, as tea, as a baked dessert, as jelly, as an addition to jams, or as elderflower juice.

My grandma from Maurachgut always took us along when harvesting meadow caraway, herbs, and also for the elderflower harvest and passed on a simple but good recipe to us; it keeps well and is easy to make. I am happy to pass the recipe on and wish you success.

Ingredients: 40-50 large elderflowers (it can also be 10 more, only the umbels), 4 l water, 6 kg fine granulated sugar, 6 organic lemons (well washed) or you can mix lemons with oranges and 125 g citric acid. In dry weather—ideally at midday—harvest elderflowers; I always pinch them off right after the bloom so that there is almost no stem. So, you put the mass into a 10 l bucket or other clean vessel, add 4 l water, 6 kg sugar as well as sliced lemons and the citric acid, stir it a few times and finally add the dry elderflowers. Then stir vigorously again. Every day (for 3–6 days), stir the juice at least once a day.

If you stir several times a day and the juice already has a good taste, you can bottle the elderberry juice after just three days. It is strained through a sieve and a cloth and filled into clean bottles. We only squeeze out the cloth at the end and use this squeezed-out syrup (the “little bit left over”) for drinking right away. The filled bottles keep very well for a year or longer. We store them in the cellar, screwed tight. If you want, you can also boil the elderberry juice briefly and add a little preserving aid; however, the juice also keeps very well when prepared cold and everything was done according to the instructions above. You get about 7 l of elderflower syrup from the above amount. Farmer Katharina from Zittrauerhof wishes you success.