How to make rose cordial

Which roses, and which not

Never eat or drink anything foraged unless you are certain of the identification. A web page cannot make you certain: use a reliable field guide, or learn from somebody who already knows the plant.

Never use a florist's rose. Commercially grown cut flowers are routinely treated with pesticides and preservatives that are not approved for food, and there is no way to wash that off. The same applies to garden roses that have been sprayed.

The roses worth using are the strongly scented old varieties — damask roses (Rosa damascena), Rosa gallica, and the wild dog rose (Rosa canina) — grown or found unsprayed. Modern hybrid tea roses bred for shape and colour are often almost scentless, and a scentless rose makes a cordial that tastes of sugar and nothing else.

The test is simple: if you cannot smell it clearly from a step away, it will not flavour anything. Scent is the whole ingredient.

The method

Cold or barely warm extraction, because rose aroma is very heat-sensitive. 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. Pick in the morning after the dew has dried, when the scent is strongest and the flowers are fully open but not yet dropping.
2. Pull the petals off and shake out any insects. Do not wash them if you can avoid it.
3. Cut off the pale or white heel at the base of each petal. It is bitter, and this is the step most recipes omit and most cooks regret skipping.
4. Put the petals in a bowl with sugar and the juice of a lemon, and rub the sugar and lemon into them with your fingers until the petals darken and go limp. This bruising is what releases the scent.
5. Cover with water that is warm rather than hot, stir to dissolve the sugar, and leave to steep somewhere cool overnight.
6. Strain through muslin without forcing. Taste and adjust with more lemon.
7. Bottle into sterilised bottles. The colour will be pale pink or amber rather than the bright pink of shop syrups, which are coloured.

What to expect

Colour

Pale pink to amber, and it dulls over time. Commercial rose syrup is dyed; home-made is not.

Strength

Rose is potent. A small amount of cordial goes a long way, and over-diluting is better than over-doing it.

The heel

The white base of the petal is bitter. Trimming it makes a real difference and is worth the time.

Heat

Rose aroma is destroyed by boiling. Warm water, never a rolling boil.

Rose water

A distilled product and a different thing. Much more concentrated, and used by the teaspoon.

How to use it

• Diluted with cold or sparkling water, with plenty of ice and a squeeze of lemon.
• Over yoghurt or a milk pudding, particularly with pistachios.
• With raspberries, which share aromatic compounds with rose and are a genuine pairing rather than a fashion.
• In a jelly or a sorbet, where the perfume carries.
• In a rice pudding or a set cream, in place of vanilla.
• Brushed onto a sponge cake before filling it.
• With lychee, which shares the same aromatic family.
• In a drink with gin or vodka and lemon.

Common questions