Cheers to 2008!

Happy New Year! I've just toasted the arrival of 2008 with a glass of homemade elderflower champagne. (I bottled my first-ever batch of this fabulously fizzy drink just before Christmas and it's now fermenting nicely in my garden shed.) My garden has two absolutely huge elders (Sambucus nigra, ) on one of my boundaries and last year I harvested buckets and buckets of the dark purple berries for jams, puddings, crumbles and cakes. I thought I was getting pretty darn imaginative on the culinary front... yet everytime I told anyone that I had elderberries in my garden, they'd say "Have you ever made elderberry wine?". I had to confess, that no, I hadn't. But 2008 brings a new year, a new season... and a new crop of elderberries. So later this month, when the elderberries are ripe, I'm going to make a case of elderberry wine to sup in winter.
But first, I thought I'd also try making elderflower champagne. It's only mildly alcoholic - it's more like ginger beer (but without the ginger) - and it literally tastes like you've bottled the scent of a summer's day. Delicious! My first batch is quite syrupy so I think I might dilute it a little with a hint of soda water. I was going to make a second batch but unfortunately most of the flowers have now developed into small berries.
Here's the recipe I used. It's very simple - the hardest part is finding elderflowers to pick as they're officially classified as a weed in most parts of the country. Start by picking as many flowers as you can. I used about 20 flowerheads, although some of them were reasonably small. You'll need a large plastic bucket with a lid to make it in. The ingredients are: 10 litres of water, 1kg of white sugar, 4 tablespoons of white wine vinegar and the zest and juice of two lemons. Mix together in the bucket, then add the elderflowers. Pick off any bugs but don't wash the delicate white flowers as you'll bruise them. The flowers have their own wild yeasts so you don't need to add any. Put the lid on the bucket and leave to steep for 24-48 hours, stirring every few hours. Then strain through a sieve and pour into sterilised, airtight bottles. Leave for a few weeks before drinking.