Spent a day at Cheltenham Food & Drink festival today sampling some yummy delights including some very drinkable elderflower and gooseberry presse - not alcoholic but a great flavour! Definitely set the creative ponderings going and we had a great chat with the v friendly sellers about the whys and wherefores of commercial elderflower picking. The season is short and intense by all accounts and everyone involved spends the few weeks out scouring the local hedgerows and picking 5-6kgs per day of elderflowers!!
Because of the way the flowers sweat once picked each batch is dealt with on a daily basis; they really are quite delicate things. Smelly cars and 'pickers finger' seem the biggest hazards of the job - then by the end of June when the season ends they have a big piss up to celebrate. Sounds awful ;o)
They pick all over Bredon hill wherever they can get the flowers, being careful not to strip each tree so as to leave enough to turn to elder berries and also enough to pollinate and make new trees.
We also quaffed some pink elderflower champagne, made from a pink garden variety of elder - didn't even know there was such a thing but it sure made tasty juice. This was a very low alcohol drink at between 1-2% made with just the natural yeasts present and probably very different to the stuff we have fermenting away in our spare room! Something else to try?! This trial and error lark is getting a bit out of hand and still not enough bottles...
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ReplyDeletehmm bottles...get Shand to sort out the bottles Claire! I had to ask in the pub for him the other day. (Must go on that assertiveness course Guy) :-)
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