Flower Champagne
If you don't want to use loads of sugar and spend a lot of time sterilising bottles, an easy way to get the most of out some of the many beautiful flowers blossoming in spring and early summer is to make flower 'champagne' or 'wine'. This slightly alcoholic fizzy drink is made by adding flowers, lemon, and a little sugar to water and leaving it for a few weeks to ferment. The yeasts naturally present in the environment will break down the sugar, converting it into alcohol and carbon dioxide, leaving you with a deliciously refreshing, mildly alcoholic fizzy drink.
I make champagne with elderflowers, rose petals, lavender, linden blossom and sometimes a combination of different flowers. In theory, any edible flowers can be used for champagne. If they smell nice, chances are they'll taste nice too!
The basic method I use is this:
Pick 1-2 densely packed cups of flowers and place them in a 5 litre container (a large water bottle is perfect)
Add a sliced lemon
Half fill the container with spring water or filtered water (don't use heavily chlorinated tap water or the fermentation won't work)
Dissolve 350 grams of sugar in about a litre of water and pour into the container (never pour hot water directly over the flowers, it will kill off the yeasts you need to start the fermentation!)
Continue to add water until the container is almost full. Leave an inch or two of space at the top of the container for when the fermentation starts.
Cover the mouth of the container with a thin cloth or a mesh and leave to stand for 3-4 days somewhere warm but out of direct sunlight.
Stir daily.
After a few days you should begin to see some bubbles forming at the top of the bottle. This is the fermentation process beginning to work.
After 3 or 4 days, strain off the flowers. You can either pour your champagne back into a big 5 litre bottle, or into smaller bottles and place them somewhere cool and out of direct sunlight. I strongly recommend using plastic bottles rather than glass bottles for this stage because the pressure build-up can cause glass bottles to explode. Check the bottles regularly and carefully open the lids every few days to release the pressure. You'll notice that after a while the champagne becomes very fizzy. Taste it after a week or two. It will start off as sweet and fizzy and over time will gradually taste more and more alcoholic. Everyone has their preferences, but I like it when it's about half way to alcoholic - not too sweet, not too alcoholic, and nice and fizzy. At this point if you haven't already got it in smaller bottles, you can decant it and put it in the fridge as this slows down the fermentation process and keeps it tasting just right for longer.