 |
| This is Pokeberry, a lovely but highly poisonous plant. Don't make tinctures out of it. |
1/4 cup elderberries
2 cups alcohol (vodka, moonshine, or even whiskey if you enjoy whiskey)
Infuse your elderberries by soaking them for 2-4 weeks in a glass container such as a large mason jar, or pickle jar, or whatever jar you can find!
1 cup alcohol
3 TB dandelion root
Soak this at the same time in another container.
After two weeks, or until you are satisfied with the taste strength, filter out your tinctures with cheesecloth, or a coffee filter, and mix together you bitters solution with this basic ratio:
1 part bittering agent (here the dandelion root)
1 part water
1/2 part simple syrup
4 parts liquor
Elderberry, Rose, and Dandelion Root Bitters
1 tablespoon rose petal/rose hips infusion (basically tea with 1 cup/1TB ratio)
2 teaspoons of elderberry simple syrup (equal parts sugar/water, and about half of one of those parts elderberries, simmered for 15-30 minutes on low heat)
3 tablespoons of the elderberry tincture
2 tablespoons of the dandelion tincture
Just play around. Taste every so often. Add things if you want, and I rarely ever measure unless to report my findings in a concrete way, so feel free to stay loose and do your own thang.
Helpful Hints:
Bittering agents:
various citrus peels: lemon, lime, grapefruit,
wormwood
dandelion root
quassia
milk thistle
Other flavors could be any number of herbs or spices you can think up! Lemongrass, rose, cherries, cinnamon, clove, etc.
Some primarily floral bitters sound pretty cool too. Had I had access to elderflowers, an elderflower/rose/lavender bitters would have been pretty fabulous.
I love the fabulous coded meaning of flowers. Roses mean different things depending on the color; dark pink (as mine were) evidently means "gratitude," elderflowers mean "compassion," while dandelions signify "coquetry." Gratitude, compassion, and coquetry. Yeah, that sounds about right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_of_flowers
