After a long and flowerless winter, I am overjoyed when the lilacs burst into bloom. Since lilac season is incredibly short, I try to find ways to make the most of their incredible beauty and distinctive fragrance. I don’t especially enjoy the flavor of fragrant flowers, but after making crystallized lilac blossoms I had a newfound love of the flavor of lilacs. This encouraged me to adventure into the world of edible fragrant flowers and make lilac lemonade.

PREPARING THE FLOWERS

-Pick flowers in the morning when their oil is at its peak. Also, try to pick them when they’ve just started blooming so they will be the most fragrant.

-Make sure they are free of pesticides.

-Remove petals from the green part of the stem so it doesn’t make the syrup bitter.

-You may want to rinse the flowers to remove any dirt and bugs or give them a good shake.

Simple syrup is a liquid form of sugar used to sweeten cold drinks, making it easier to blend in. By making lilac simple syrup you capture the fragrance and flavor of the lilac blossoms – making lilac lemonade incredibly easy.

REFERENCE:

Tóth G, Barabás C, Tóth A, Kéry Á, Béni S, Boldizsár I, Varga E, Noszál B. Characterization of antioxidant phenolics in Syringa vulgaris L. flowers and fruits by HPLC-DAD-ESI-MS. Biomed Chromatogr. 2016 Jun;30(6):923-32. doi: 10.1002/bmc.3630. Epub 2015 Nov 17. PMID: 26433204.

Creatively designed by Hope Konkol