Elderflower Gin Recipe
First things first. To pick Elderflowers, you need Elder Trees. I find these just about impossible to identify until they come into flower. Then suddenly... you start noticing them all over the place.
Every year we make Elderflower cordial, along with other elderflower drink, jellies and my personal favourite: Elderflower Lemon Curd. But we'd never made Elderflower Gin until this year. And I'm here to tell you: Elderflower Gin is a beautiful thing.
Fresh Elderflowers have the most amazing fragrance. Making Elderflower Gin enables you to enjoy their loveliness all year long. We had been keeping an eye on the elderflowers around here for a few days. Then we had a warm spell, and now they all seem to be flowering at once.
So we've made Elderflower Cordial, Elderflower Champagne, Sparkling Elderflower Mead and we will make Elderflower and Gooseberry Vodka too, as we did last year.
But if you make nothing else with Elderflower this year: make Elderflower Gin. It is easy to make, smells so beautiful and is a fabulous long drink with tonic. Or enjoy it on its own with ice. Usually we find infused gins improve with age. I wonder if that will apply to Elderflower Gin? It tastes amazing already! Assuming we can keep our hands off it: I'll let you know...
A note about the appearance of Homemade Elderflower Gin [2020 update]
When I originally posted this recipe back in 2018, Elderflower Gin wasn't widely available, and certainly wasn't in the public consciousness on the scale it is now.
Now commercially-produced Elderflower Gin is everywhere. And it is generally beautifully clear, or yellow, or pink.
I need to mention that your homemade Elderflower Gin will taste beautiful, but it may not look as beautiful as shop-bought. That's because you're not adding artificial colours, nor are you straining every tiny bit of elderflower out (assuming the commercial products use elderflowers in their process, sometimes they will use a flavouring or essences).
I've seen it positively mud-coloured, which isn't as appealing as a pretty bottle that is crystal clear. Some of the comments on this post were made prior to me adding this update, in case you were wondering.
The risk of cloudiness can be minimised by straining the flowers out multiple times through fine muslin to ensure as few bits get through as possible. Or filtering it using a Fine Harris Filter. Because as the 'bits' go brow, that affects the colour and clarity of the final product. Though bear in mind that if you plan to drink this with a mixer like tonic, diluting it makes cloudiness less noticeable.
If not looking like shop bought bothers you, I would advise you not to make as much of this as you planned to, so you can be sure you're happy with the end result before going headlong into it.
I love anything homemade so it doesn't bother me, hopefully it won't put you off either. But I thought I'd better mention it.
If you want to be sure of crystal clear elderflower gin and tonic and would like a short cut version: just cheat and add a dash of homemade Elderflower Cordial to your gin and tonic!
Elderflower Gin Recipe
- 750ml of Gin. You don't need to spend the earth, use the cheapest gin you can find. Lidl & Morrisons Gin are generally the cheapest, yet often win blind taste tests.
- 15-20 freshly picked Elderflower heads
- Zest of a lemon, taken off in large strips with a potato peeler is fine
- 100g sugar
- A 1 litre preserving jar
- A product suitable for sterilising your equipment - see below.
- And in a week's time: a possibly pretty (and definitely sterilised) bottle.
Method
Shake the flower heads to get as many insects off as you can. Discard any brown flowers.
Remove the Elderflowers from the stems. I quickly remove the tiny flowers from the bigger stems and pop them into a large bowl, and it really doesn't take too long.
But please don't be tempted not to bother. Thick elderflower stems will make your gin taste bitter and spoil it. Sterilise your jar using either a home brewing steriliser like these, or you can use Milton if you have some.
Place the flower heads and lemon zest in the jar with the sugar. Top up with gin, making sure to cover the flowers. Secure the lid and shake the jar to dissolve the sugar.
Put on a shelf somewhere for a week. If the sugar didn't quite dissolve the first time, shake the jar occasionally until it does.
If you get a stripe at the top of the jar like this, don't panic. If any of your flowers are above the surface of the liquid for any length of time, they will oxidise and turn brown. Even if a lot of your flowers turn brown, this may affect the colour of your end product, but it won't affect the taste. The key is to drown the flowers in as much gin as is humanly possible.
After a week, strain the gin through muslin into your sterilised bottle of choice. If you love the smell of gin and the smell of Elderflowers, you are in for a treat at this point. Honestly, the whole kitchen smelled wonderful for ages! Put the lid on the bottle, and pop your gin somewhere dark for as long as you can bear.
Theoretically, your Elderflower Gin will last for years. Not in our house, it won't! :)
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Hi Lesley, yes it is. You will see mine is quite a murky green in the filtering image in the post, that was after one filter session only. If you want it to be more clear, filter it as many times as you want and it will get clearer each time. Alternatively if you’re a home brewer and you already have a Harris Filter you could use that. I also filter through coffee filters, muslin, cheesecloth… whatever I have about really. Commercial makers will have highly sophisticated filtering systems (or may not use the flowers themselves to make the gin at all) which is why we’re so used to seeing it sparkly clear. But you can bet it pretty clear with a few filtering sessions if you don’t want the murk. Also if you dilute it with tonic, it’s far less noticeable !
Hi,
I’ve just made your gin recipe. I left it for just over a week before straining.
It tastes very strong , but has gone a brown greeny colour .
Is it safe to drink ?
Jill, the colour is always a bit variable. When this gin is produced commercially they use all sorts of things to clarify it, sometimes they don’t use the flowers at all (essences instead) so they don’t have to deal with all the murk in the first place. It is the bits of flower, stems etc that cause the gin not to be beautifully clear. Whilst this makes it wonderfully homemade, I totally get for a gift that you want it to look nice! The image of me filtering the gin shows it a bit green and murky, that was after the first strain through muslin. The more you strain it, the clearer it gets. If you use a Harris Filter you can get it really, really clear. It all depends how much time you have and how clear you want it to be.
I’m making this as a birthday gift – does it discolour much? It smells wonderful and I am sure she’ll love it but I was hoping it would look nice too.
Alex, I agree with you. The contents of that jar have such a high alcohol content, I imagine it would last forever! We’ve left ours for over a year before now, once it’s strained.