#49: Lilac flower liqueur

Another triumph of hope over experience.

And another experimental 'brew': I was reading articles on the internet to try and find a recipe for the hawthorn shoot liqueur that M. Claude had told me about [he was very chatty about it until I started grilling him on how to make it, then went strangely silent; speaking with Mme. Claude on Sunday I worked out why - he only collects the twigs, she's the alchemist!]. Well none was forthcoming, but I came across an article on edible flowers/leaves which said that lilac flowers were edible.

So, emboldened by the experience of making elderflower liqueur [it's not disgusting, especially given how I hate the smell of the plant, and the smell of the flowers really perfumes it], I thought I would try lilac flower liqueur to see if I could capture some of the scent of a warm spring day.

My general principle these days is to fill a jar with flowers/leaves and then with gin/vodka/alcool pour fruits (a fairly rough-and-ready eau-de-vie, I think), and maybe a small amount of sugar or not, depending on how I'm feeling/whether I forget.

[When I'm dealing with fruit I two-thirds fill it, unless I don't have another jar, then I fill it.]

I think I recall reading that sugar helps set the flavours, or draw them out? I'm not sure; the Mad Scienticians™ don't put sugar in their flavoured quintuple-filtered vodkæ, but they are making a slightly different thing [probably].

And they don't forget about their creations for nearly a year [a reminder comes in the form of needing the bocaux for the next seasons efforts].

[Recipe Alert!]

So, back to the topic in hand: for this particular batch, I filled the jar with flowers taken off the stem, added a dessertspoonful of cassonade [looks like a cross between demerara and granulated sugars], and then filled it with 38° alcool pour fruits.

Now I'm sitting back and letting Nature work its magic, with the occasional agitation of the jar so that I can claim the credit! I may plan to decant it fairly quickly, but know that that will happen when it happens.

The hope-over-experience bit? Well that's hoping that the beautiful colours will also infuse the drink over the experience of knowing it will all go brown!