Jasmine
Jasmine liqueur recipes date back to at least the mid-1700s, but surely someone thought to pour alcohol over jasmine flowers long before that. The species to get is Jasminum officinale, sometimes called poet’s jasmine. You could also try the tropical Jasminum sambac, called pikake in Hawaii, if you thought you could protect it from temperatures below sixty degrees year-round. In fact, both of these jasmine require a mild winter, so plan on bringing them indoors if you get heavy frost or snow. Otherwise, all they need is a moderate amount of water and a structure to climb on. The procedure...
Read MoreBlooming Cocktails
Last month I looked at flowers that can be used to decorate cocktails—borage and pansies and the like—but this month, we’ll consider a few flowers that actually flavor drinks. Some of these have been used for centuries to make not just liqueurs, but boozy medicinal potions as well. Elderflower. Cordials and sodas flavored with elderflowers are a very British thing, but it took an American distiller to recognize their potential. Rob Cooper, a third-generation distiller, tasted homemade elderflower syrup in a London bar and decided to create a liqueur from the flowers. The result is...
Read MoreBooks by Amy Stewart
The Drunken Botanist
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