How to make blackcurrant cordial

Why so much sugar

Blackcurrants are extremely acidic and quite astringent, and a cordial made with a modest amount of sugar is genuinely unpleasant to drink even heavily diluted. The sugar is not only sweetening — it is balancing an acidity that would otherwise dominate completely.

The concentration also matters for keeping, though how long any home-made cordial keeps and under what conditions is a food-safety question rather than a matter of taste.

The practical answer is to make the cordial strong and sweet, and dilute it hard in the glass. A cordial made to be drunk at one part in eight can afford to taste too sweet in the bottle.

The method

Extraction, then sweetening. FoodHQ does not publish keeping times or preservative quantities for home-made cordials. Those are safety numbers rather than matters of taste, and in the UK the Food Standards Agency is the authority — follow its guidance on sterilising bottles and on storing, refrigerating and freezing what you make.

1. Strip the currants from their strings — a fork run down each sprig does it in seconds. A few stalks are harmless.
2. Put the fruit in a pan with a small amount of water, roughly a quarter of the weight of the fruit.
3. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for ten minutes or so, crushing the fruit against the side of the pan as the skins burst.
4. Tip into a scalded jelly bag or muslin over a bowl and let it drip. For a cordial rather than a jelly, gentle pressing is acceptable — clarity matters less here.
5. Measure the juice and return it to a clean pan. Add sugar, commonly around three-quarters of the juice by weight, and warm gently until fully dissolved.
6. Do not boil hard. A brief heat is enough; hard boiling dulls the fresh flavour.
7. Taste. Add lemon juice if it needs lifting, though blackcurrant rarely does.
8. Bottle into sterilised bottles while hot, or cool and freeze in portions.

Variations and yields

Yield

A kilo of blackcurrants gives roughly six hundred to seven hundred millilitres of juice, and around a litre of finished cordial.

Dilution

Around one part cordial to six or eight parts water. Stronger than most people expect.

Leaves

Blackcurrant leaves carry a green, resinous version of the same aroma. A handful steeped in the hot cordial and removed is a real addition.

Frozen fruit

Works perfectly and often gives more juice, since freezing ruptures the cells.

Freezing the cordial

The most practical way to keep a large batch. Ice cube trays, then bagged.

What to do with it

• Diluted, cold, with a lot of ice, which is what it is for.
• Hot, with water, in winter — a traditional British drink and a very good one.
• Over ice cream or a set cream, undiluted.
• In a sorbet, diluted only slightly.
• Reduced further into a thick syrup for drizzling over a chocolate pudding or a cheesecake.
• In a dressing or a pan sauce for duck or game, in place of some of the vinegar.
• As the base of a kir-style drink with sparkling wine.

Common questions