Makes 10 litres

The magic of this drink is that the elderflowers contain a natural yeast to ferment it – even if the flowers are dried or frozen! If using fresh flowers then pick them each morning before they have attracted those little black bugs that love the pollen and nectar on the flowers.

  • 4 heads of freshly picked or dried flowers
  • 4 cups rapadura or honey
  • 4 tbsp cider vinegar or whey
  • 3 chopped whole lemons
  • 2 litres hot water
  • 8 litres cold water

Remove all of the tiny flowers from the flower heads – only the flowers (not stalks) are to be added to the mix. (Even picked early in a morning we find that there are some little black bugs so we put the flower heads that we’ve removed from the stalks into a fine meshed metal sieve and then gently shake it and the bugs fall through)

Place hot water in a sterilised stainless steel bucket and dissolve the rapadura or honey

Add the cold water, then the chopped lemons, whey and flowers. Use a wooden spoon to stir in the flowers.

Leave for 24 hours, covered well with a cloth

Strain bottle and cap. We prefer to use Grolsh beer bottles with the flip top lids which are easy to reseal if you are part way through a bottle