Elderflower Cordial

Late May into June, the hedgerows turn cream. You smell it before you see it, a sweet, muscat, slightly foxy perfume that drifts across lanes and field edges and tells you the year has tipped into its brief golden stretch. Elderflower season is short. Two weeks, maybe three, and then the flowers brown and the moment has gone. If you want to catch it, you have to go out and catch it.

This is the cordial I make every year without fail. It asks very little of you: a walk on a dry morning, a pan of syrup, a bowl big enough to hold it all, and the patience to let it steep for a full day. That's it. The flowers do the clever bit. The sugar carries the perfume. The citric acid keeps it fresh and gives it that little lift that stops it tasting flabby.

A splash in a glass of cold water on a hot afternoon. A slug over a scoop of good vanilla ice cream. A measure with gin and soda and a sprig of mint when someone drops by unexpectedly. In February, when the garden is bare and the days are dark at four, you pour a little into hot water with a slice of lemon and suddenly June is in the room again.

I wrote it down in the notebook the first year I made it: "Walked the lane. Picked twenty-five heads. Smells of summer coming in the window." That's still the whole recipe, as far as I'm concerned. Everything after is just the doing.