Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat

Eating and Drinking => Homebrew => Topic started by: New shoot on January 28, 2017, 19:04

Title: Sweet cicely drinks
Post by: New shoot on January 28, 2017, 19:04

This is long shot, but has anyone tried using this plant in drinks.

I have a huge clump in the garden and use it for cooking, but I've read about 2 ideas which interest me.  The first is steeping it in vodka, which you can use leaves, stems or flowers for.  The second is to use the flowers in elderflower wine recipes but increase the quantity as they are less potent tasting.

I'd like to make a bit more use of it.  It has a sweet aniseedy taste and doesn't dry well, so I thought these might be alternative ways to capture the flavour  :)

Title: Re: Sweet cicely drinks
Post by: snowdrops on January 28, 2017, 19:28

Don't know about drinks, but isnt it supposed to help reduce the amount of sugar needed in rhubarb?

Title: Re: Sweet cicely drinks
Post by: New shoot on January 28, 2017, 20:52

It does reduce the sugar needed for rhubarb and other stewed fruits.  The green seeds are nice to munch on as well, but that is the extent of my usage so far  :)

Title: Re: Sweet cicely drinks
Post by: New shoot on April 16, 2017, 20:04

I started off some sweet cicely vodka today with a mix of flowers, leaves and stems.  The flowers went in whole and the leaves and stems were chopped up.

While I was at it, I also did some rhubarb and vanilla vodka - only because I recently bought a tub with 2 vanilla beans in, that was marked down as they were short dated.  I'm hoping it will be like an alcoholic version of stewed rhubarb with proper custard  :D

Title: Re: Sweet cicely drinks
Post by: Michelesflowers on September 25, 2018, 22:57

Quote from: New shoot on January 28, 2017, 19:04

This is long shot, but has anyone tried using this plant in drinks.

I have a huge clump in the garden and use it for cooking, but I've read about 2 ideas which interest me.  The first is steeping it in vodka, which you can use leaves, stems or flowers for.  The second is to use the flowers in elderflower wine recipes but increase the quantity as they are less potent tasting.

I'd like to make a bit more use of it.  It has a sweet aniseedy taste and doesn't dry well, so I thought these might be alternative ways to capture the flavour  :)

Hi, yes, I've mAde 4 gallons of delicious wine from it

Title: Re: Sweet cicely drinks
Post by: Michelesflowers on September 25, 2018, 23:03

Lovely wine can be made from sweet cicely, tastes delicious, said to be good for the heart and for Christy coughs. Make like elderfpower wine