The Elderberries (Sambucus nigra) are abundant this year. Great bunches of them are hanging off the branches, bowing down almost begging to be picked and made into an Elderberry Cordial Syrup.
As humans we can benefit a lot from Elderberry culinary delights. In folklore Elderberries have been used as a protection against influenza. World renowned Israeli virologist Dr. Madeleine Mumcuoglu has dedicated her life to researching the health benefits of Elderberry extract, and has established a clinically proven treatment against flu (including swine flu and avian flu).
Ingredients
- Bucket of Elderberries
- Granulated sugar
- Cloves
Suggested Instructions
- Cut the Elderberries just below the stalks.
- Use a fork to remove the Elderberries from the stalks into a bowl.
- Place the Elderberries in a saucepan with enough water to cover them.
- Simmer for 20 minutes.
- Strain the Elderberry mixture through a muslin or straining bag, squeezing to make sure you get all the juice out.
- For each pint of juice you get, add 1lb of granulated sugar and 12 cloves.
- Boil the mixture for 10 minutes.
- Allow the Elderberry mixture to cool, and then bottle in sterilised glass bottles, making sure that the caps have a plastic seal.
- Add an equal amount of the cloves to each bottle you make up.
The Elderberry cordial syrup will last up to two years.
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To say I dislike the taste of cloves is an understatement. In your recipe for Elderberry cordial are they included for anything other than flavour? Can I leave them out or replace with something else?
Thanks
Simon: The cloves act as a preservative. So if you don’t use cloves then make sure you sterilise your bottles really well. Maybe add some citric or tartaric acid. For every 500ml of liquid add one teaspoon of citric acid or tartaric acid. Good luck with the experiment!
Hi, I do like cloves but wondered if you could add other spices to the cloves for a more balanced spicy flavour? Otherwise I think the cloves would be too overpowering, would love to have any suggestions.
Hi Simon,
I’ve seen other recipes on the internet (been obsessively looking at them all!!), and some people use a squirt of lemon juice instead of cloves; others use equal amounts of honey to berries, e.g. 1 cup of berries and 1 cup of honey with no cloves….made the honey version last night and it’s gorgeous, but going to make it with cloves today to see which I like best!
Good luck!
Angie: Using wild foods is alot about undomesticating yourself and playing with new ingredients. So feel free to experiment and come up with new flavours.
Kate: So which one did you like best?
Ha ha! It’s funny that your last post mentions playing around, as in the end I used the honey, but put cloves in! I like the idea of using honey rather than sugar because of the natural antiseptic nature of it, but like the little kick cloves give it (even though I hate cloves, I couldn’t taste it so much)
Haven’t tried with lemon juice yet though…perhaps that is for the next batch!
I’ve been making what I call Hedgerow Cordial all of my 3 batches have contained considerate amounts of elderberries but they also have included varying amounts of brambles (blackberries), rosehips, rowan berries, and a bit of this and a dash of that (spices including mixed spice which has cloves in it and/or apples or any other fruit that needed using up) i even tossed in some of my cherry tomatoes I’d grown but didn’t like the texture of (rosehips have a similar taste to tomato so I took a chance and it worked!).
I’ve added about 2/3rds sugar in grams per ml of liquid and I have washed all jars and lids in a bleach water solution (10 parts water to 1 part bleach) and have put all jars in the oven for 20 minutes at 120C. So far doing this everything is keeping quite nicely. I believe being very cautious with the sterilising and the combination of hedgerow fruits helps a lot. The rowan berries contain a very large concentration of vitamin C so I’ve made certain to add them in every batch to help preserve the cordial better but it’s really the elderberries I’m after, I have no intention of getting the flu this year and my cupboard stocked full of cordial will attest to that! 1 tbsp a day for everyone in the family from now til it’s gone!
Great Recipe thanks – I just collected today a bucket each of elderberries, brambles and sloes from the lake district where I am near for a few weeks. The hedgerows are teeming with fruits. I like to leave a third of every ‘stem’ branch for the birds to share (I am the greedier of course).
I wanted to say in Sweden I make LOTS of redcurrant syrup also blackcurrant too. For a winter concoction I bring some back here and then make a recipe that is different every year according to what’s available. I add to the pot ginger – powder, grated and also a few pinches of some kind of chilli – added heat! I use less sugar but add some citric acid or lemons. And I ‘soak’ and cook the bottles in boiling water on the stove for 5 / 6 minutes or so.
I then add at the end some of my already made redcurrant syrup — great for warding off colds – haven’t had one for several years !!
please forgive my ignorance as im new to the foraging game !
would you use this as a cordial or straight ?
Craig: You use it diluted with water like a regular cordial. If you are using it as a flu prevention then take 1 tablespoon daily neat.
I love using honey with this recipe as it is medicinal especially the more raw and local it is. Add in towards the end with out boiling or simmering to keep the medicinal qualities. You can also use a little alcohol, brandy is commom, as a preservative if you don’t like the cloves.
I would love to try this recipe but, alas, no elderberry bushes in our area. I did, however, order some organic dried elderberries online. Any suggestions on how best to prepare this cordial using dried elderberries rather than fresh? Thanks! Any help in keeping the family healthy naturally is MUCH appreciated.
Rachel: I’ve never used dried elder berries, but I would soak them for half a day in the water before you simmer as in Step 4. Be interesting to know how it turns out. Can you pop back and post your results?
Well, I did the cordial using dried elderberries. I did not soak them as you suggested because I forgot to. LOL
I put one cup of water and one cup of dried elderberries to boil. Once it began to boil, I lowered the temperature slightly and allowed it to simmer for 45 minutes. 15 minutes before it was done, I added 12 cloves to the mixture.
After the time was up, I strained the mixture through my tripod tomato sauce strainer with a bowl underneath it to catch the juices. It has a wooden pestle for mashing the fruit with which helped me to collect as much of the juice as I could.
Once it was completed strained, I added one cup of honey to the mixture, stirring until it was well blended and then bottled it in my pre-sterilized bottle.
I had a devil of a time finding bottles but, finally, found a package of two oil and vinegar bottles that had tops which would seal. I found these at CostPlus for $3.99 for the set of two.
I quite enjoy the cordial. The clove adds an interesting flavor. My husband and children don’t care for the clove taste. I’m going to make another batch without the clove this time, either substituting brandy or citric acid for the preservative.
My research has shown that honey itself is a preservative. Has anyone had any experience on how well this works? I’d like to keep it as simple as possible.
Thanks for having this site and for all the suggestions. It’s been quite exciting making my first batch of cordial!
EDIT: My post above was from memory but while cleaning out my notebooks, I found the one I’d used while making the cordial.
I actually used, 1/2 cup dried elderberries and 3 cups distilled water. All the other steps remained the same.
Thanks for all the info. How do you dry the elderberries? Interested because it is foraging time in New Zealand now.
Marianne: I only use fresh elderberries. If you want to dry them I suggest using a food dehydrator.
Have any of you tried to make elderflower cordial. I have found numerous recipes but it does not seem to last very long. Do you have any suggestions?
Rachel – With elderflower cordial you might want to put it in plastic bottles and freeze it… yeah I know, not much good if the electricity goes down!
Well I have just found this site. I was googling for Elderberry recipes. I am a jam making junkie. I have just made some Elderberry and Apple jam, mixed fruit jam and Hedgerow jam for our church summer fair. They were snatching them out of my hands as I took them out of my bag. I am really interested in trying this cordial recipe. Can I put it in jars instead of bottles? I get loads of jars, but no bottles. Thanks.
Course you can Mary, course you can
I made a lovely elderflower cordial in the summer; light and fresh. Three bottles got drunk in a week or so! Tonight I am going to make the elderberry cordial from the berries in the garden. Just been to the park to get the last of the blackberries – I might add those too. Elder is one of the most resouceful trees. It is so generous with its fruits and flowers.
hi thanks for this recipe, i have a 40ft+ high elderberry tree in my garden, and as i try to grow most of my own fruits felt really wasteful not using these. i have never tried this before so am experimenting. i spent 4 1/2 hours forking the berries off but still ended up with lots of small stems in the bucket. i have cooked them in 2 batches and then zapped them in my magic bullet. i am straining them through a very fine musli bag and hope to use the resulting juice in this cordial. can i use sterilized wine bottles to store my cordial? and where can i get plastic seals from ?
thanks
Linda – Yes you can use sterilised wine bottles, and no I don’t know where to get plastic seals from.
Can I use screw top wine bottles and just stand them upright in the fridge? Or are the plastic seals / caps essential?
Brenda – Yes you can use screw top bottles. You only need to use tops with plastic when bottling vinegars.
hi robin am about to start elderberry cordial process – do I need to get out the green ones and small soft bits of bits of twig.
Have followed this recpie and made two bottles of elderberry cordial which is delicious but I do think I will put less cloves in next time, am in the middle of making a whole load more…. guess what my friends are getting for christmas
can you clarify whether the boiling process to make a syrup from the berries destroys the vitamin c or do the researchers extract the juice in another way? Thanks.
Thank you very much for this brilliant recipe. Its the first time I have made anything with eldeberries. Like some other people I dont like cloves, so I have used two lemons, I hope it works as a preservative ok. Mind you it migh not matter that much as it has already been well tested with white wine and lemonade, and it went down a treat
)
I’ve been looking on the web at whether the vitamin C will be completely destroyed, and the consensus of opinion seems to be that it decomposes at 190-192 C (whereas obviously water boils at 100 C). I am slightly concerned however, that all this opinion has come from one wikipedia article…
However, it also seems to be the case that heating speeds up the enymatic process (ie destruction) that begins when the fruit is cut up and the cells are exposed to air, so I would say prepare the syrup as quickly as possible to maximise the vitamin content. I don’t think just soaking or macerating would work because you need the heat to kill off yeasts etc.
).
(Please note at this point that I am neither a scientist nor an ethanobotanist, so these are my own conclusions from reading on the net
The wikipedia article is interesting, and lists the vitamin C content of many foods, including elderberries and rosehips. Rosehips have the 3rd highest content after two decidedly non native fruits (I’ve never heard of either). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_C
Therefore, I think I will make rosehip syrup for vitamin C, based on the fact the original levels are so high, the proportion left after inevitable destruction by processing should still be significant, and elderberry for anti-viral properties.
Sorry, long answer, hope it helps!
Penny: Yes try and remove as many of the green berries and bits of twig as possible.
This is fantastic! I added freshly squeezed lemon whilst cooling down and it works perfectly
Hi – I have been familiar with elderberry cordial since a kid – used to get this treat as a hot drink slightly diluted if there were any signs of a cold or a flu showing. My family recipe is a bit different so just thought I would post it if any interested. I boil the berries without adding water – start slowly until the berries have leaked a bit of juice, then cook at low/medium heat for 20-30 min. Sieve the juice from the berries and get the juice back on the heat and add 150 gr of cane sugar per liter of juice. The cordial is to be drunk hot and diluted only 50/50. Enjoy!
For a festive taste add oranges, lemons, allspice, nutmeg, cinamon etc. When required add warmed to red wine to make an alternative but delicious mulled wine. or drink warm and slighly diluted on its own for non alcoholic mulled wine.
brilliant i’ve never used elderberries before and i love them i have made jam and a cordial which i love with hot water rather than cold as i find that it brings out that unique taste that they have and i also use it as a cough syrup too brilliant thanks for the tips.
Just tried this recipe and it worked really well. However, nothing prepared me for the reaction my cats had to raw elderberries – they loved them! They’re still alive several hours later so I take it the berries are not bad for them…
We have a vitamix and use it to turn many fruits into juices/smoothies and veggies into soups – there is no waste as it pulverises everything into a liquid – I was wondering if, rather than straining the elderberries this year and inevitably wasting some juice, it would be an idea to blitz them and use 100%??? You can put whole fruits in – it makes the pips and seeds just disappear…Does anyone know of a reason why you couldn’t use the whole berry to make something to be diluted later? Answers would be most appreciated.Cathy
Cathy: Just make sure that you boil the resultant juice and do NOT use it raw. Elder and its berries are highly purgative, and must NOT be eaten raw.
Regarding the adding of honey instead of sugar – does anyone know the quantities? I made elderberry syrup with honey some years ago and have fortgotten the recipe. I do remember it boiled over everywhere when I wasn’t looking! But it tasted scrummy.
I have made a batch this year using sugar (because of it being cheaper) but already it is starting to get a hint of mould on the top. It didn’t when I made it two years ago though so not sure what is wrong this time. The last time I left it for 6 months and it started to turn to alcohol! I left another 6 months and it was even better!! Spontaneous fermentation.
Can you confirm if when using honey should you forego the sugar?
I am making my very first elderberry cordial. It is dripping at the moment. I am following the recipe above. I’m not a good cook but have found my new passion for “foraging, making and bottling”.
Will let you know how I get on.
Your Elderberry Cordial looks fabulous Robin. I have picked some elderberries today but not nearly enough, the rain seems to have rotted the majority. Thought I might use them to flavour a pear jelly. But I love the idea of a cordial preventing flu – genius!
Thanks Robin
Thanks for the site Robin, I live in beautiful unspoiled countryside, so great for foraging now I know how!
Lovely postings and answers. I just came upon your site and really enjoyed this. I am in the midwest, USA, but we have lots of elderberries and I have been cultivating a passion for wild foraging here in the tallgrass prairie. Last year we enjoyed elderberry jelly/syrup for taste and cough ease. This year our wild berries were scarce. A friend wanted to pass on some frozen berries and I was grateful. However, when I got them, they had been compacted into a bag before freezing and were a solid mass. In the past I have frozen the heads (not compacted) and then removed the berries with a fork. That won’t work in this case. Can I thaw them, mash them and strain them, or do you think that would release alkaloids from the stems? I’d hate to waste these but want to be safe. Any advice? Thanks in advance.
Rachael: Glad you like the site. Regarding your frozen block of elderberries – personally I would thaw them, then spend time removing the stems. I wouldn’t feel comfortable processing them altogether, even if they have been heated. A few tiny green fronds is OK, but not lots of stems.
I get very confused when fruit is mentioned for its exceptionally high vit C content and then the recipes say boil them. Will any vit C remain?
Does anyone know if it’s safe to use or drink when the homemade preseved elderberry cordial found with some sort of white funghi similar to that of the jelly fish that formed on top? I have kept this cordial more than a year in a steriled bottle and have not been open since. I have also found the similar growth from the white rice vinegar I bought from shop a little while ago and had used it nonetheless and it seems ok. But I am just not sure if it would be the same apply to the homemade cordial. Can anyone help as it seems a shame to throw it out?
Thanks!!
Zoe: Vitamin C is water soluble and the general public’s confusion comes from the various cooking methods. The loss only happens when you throw away the water the plant has been cooked in. With cordials you are using the ‘cooking water’ in your final product, so the vitamin C is still there.
Miranda: I tend to scrap off any mold, and use the cordial. If it tastes yucky chuck it. That being said I didn’t prepare your cordial so can’t tell you what it is, and whether it is harmful. Try a small bit and see how your body responds.
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