When life gives you elderflowers...

We have some beautiful bushes scattered about the farm that boast white blossoms comprised of hundreds of star-shaped cream flowers. Ben, from the Kentucky Forestry Division, came out to Farm Dover a month ago and walked around with us, offering advice about our trees. I asked him about the mystery bush and he identified it as an elderberry bush.

Armed with that ID, I started coming across dozens of recipes for elderberries and elderflowers. It obviously is now on my radar.

I found this recipe for elderflower and coriander vodka. And here is one for an elderflower cordial. Because I had most of the necessary ingredients on hand, I made this one for elderflower lemonade this morning.

I picked a handful of elderflowers
and plucked off the individual flowers letting them fall into a glass bowl. 

Then zested a lemon before juicing it into the bowl.
(That's the olive wood lemon juicer tool that I found at a street market in Paris.)

In went a 1/2 cup of honey.

Because I didn't have a second lemon, I thinly sliced a lime
and added it to the bowl, along with 6 cups of water.

The concoction is now sitting for a couple of days on my kitchen counter, to allow the elderflowers to infuse the lemonade with their sweet perfume. It is supposed to be hot all this week. I'm planning to lead Ed down a secret path to the forest table (the one the squirrel ate) to enjoy a cool glass of elderflower lemonade. Sounds nice, don't you think?