Food for Free: Elderflower Cordial

Caroline

Food writer, broadcaster and author Caroline Hennessy has been focused on food and writing since editing Ireland’s first food website for RTÉ in 2000. Chair of the Irish Food Writers’ Guild, she established the award-winning Bibliocook: All About Food in 2005, is the author of two books about beer and food and has a column in the Irish Examiner in which she writes about small food producers and the ways in which they develop and maintain a sustainable local food system.

You may also like...

5 Responses

  1. oooooooo lovely, I’ve a bottle of m&s organic elderflower cordial downstairs and it’s gorgeous, would say this is even better, wonder where I can get elderflowers………………………

  2. Caroline says:

    Where do you live, Rachel? They’re on every ditch down in North Cork at the moment, you just can’t avoid them!

  3. I’m in Meath, Caroline, but the husbag thinks he knows where we can get some of these, wonder are they safe to use??? Am thinking road germs et al!

  4. Karl says:

    Hey! Long time no speaky my dear…great Blog as ever. We actually made our very first (Sligo) Elderflower Cordial recently (after too many years of threatening to) and used a spoonful of Aspall’s Organic Cyder Vinegar instead of the Citric Acid and it worked a treat – we also only had time to steep for 24 hours but the flavour was wonderfully fresh and strong with a little bit of an exciting earthy ‘hedgerow’ bite – the only mistake was that we didn’t make enough so roll on next May/June 😉

  5. Caroline says:

    That’s good to know, Karl. Will definitely try that for next time. I was hoping to make Elderflower Champagne as well but the weather was not very favorable for flower picking – as far as I know, you’re supposed to pick them on a calm, sunny day so that you get the maximum amount of pollen. I rather think that the most of the elderflower pollen around here was either being washed or blown off. Still, always good to have a project planned for the next elderflower season!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.