Hello foodies! Now that we finally enjoy more sunny days than these with storms and rains, the temperature is also a lot higher than usual. So what better way to keep yourself hydrated and away from the heat if not with a fresh cocktail?
It's actually the first time when I share a recipe for a cocktail on here because as much as I enjoy healthy drinks as little I got the chance to try too many recipes out. Instead, I can guarantee that this one is both very healthy and tasty because I prepared it for many times in the last few years and it became my favorite summer drink even over the never missing lemonade.
- 5-8 elderflowers
(depending on their size) - 1-2 lemons
(depending on their size and your preferences) - 500 g sugar
- 4,5 l water
- optional: slices of lemon, 5g of yeast.
Depending whether you are going to use the elderflowers right after you collected them from nature or not, you can consider either letting them on a towel to dry for a couple of days or leaving them in the freezer to keep them fresh for a longer period until you will begin preparing the cocktail.
Personally, I had to leave from my house for a week so I was kind of forced to let them dry until I'll be back, but I prepared this cocktail in all 3 methods: fresh elderflowers, dried ones, and frozen flowers, and they all tasted the same without losing their properties or flavor.
The next step was to add the 500g of sugar in a bowl which then I filled with water and mixed it until the composition melted. You can both add more or less sugar depending on how sweet you want the drink to turn out, as well as use brown sugar instead of white as I applied in my recipe because the brown one will contribute to changing the drink's color.
After we have this part of the recipe ready, you can start squeezing the lemon/s which again depends on your preferences if you want a sweet or sour cocktail. Since the lemons I had in the house were quite small, I used 2 on a bottle of 5 liters but I think I could easily add the 3rd one as well.
There are people who also add slices of lemon in the bottle but depending on the fruits you are using, these might give a bitter taste, so that's why I decided to only use the juice and the pulp of the lemon/s.
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After you complete that step too, it's time to put everything together and wait 2-3 days until the drink is ready to be served. I usually add first in the bottle the elderflower being followed by the lemon juice and then the water mixed with sugar. After all these are part of the bottle already, you can add as much water is needed to fill the whole container and mix the composition with a long spoon that you will need to use a few times daily until the drink is ready to make sure that all the ingredients are mixed together well and avoid having a sweet drink at the top and a sour one at the bottom of the bottle.
If you prepare the drink during the cold seasons you might want to add 5g of yeast in the bottle to help the whole process move faster because it needs lots of sun and warmth when being prepared and the yeast would help with the fermentation process. You can also add it during the summer if you want to speed up the process and have the drink ready in less than 3 days.
After maximum 3 days, you will notice that the color of the drink has already changed and that it's ready to be served.
You can also leave it for more than 3 days if you are a fan of the fizzy drinks because the more they stay, the fizzier will become, but since I try to avoid drinking that kind of beverage lately, for me, the three days were just enough.
The recipe shared is for a total of 5 liters of drink but you can easily adapt the ingredients depending on how much you want to prepare. Happily, with the elderflowers left I will be able to produce at least 15 more liters that will keep me hydrated during the summer, so I can't wait for the next round of preparing the cocktails!
Preparing + cooking time: 10 mins
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