Lovage cordial
I’ve been asked for a recipe for lovage cordial, so here it is…
Coarsely chop an ounce of cleaned lovage root, a quarter ounce of fennel root and a quarter ounce of celery root.
Place the chopped roots in the bottom of a one-gallon demi-john and add six pints of spirits of wine (the old recipe), vodka (gives the best herbal flavour) or brandy (gives the most complex flavour).
Don’t use the best quality spirits, but don’t skimp too much either.
Leave the herbs to macerate for a fortnight. Strain through muslin into a pot, then stir in two pints of cooled sugar syrup (2lb of white sugar dissolved in two pints of boiling water).
Bottle and cork securely.
Use about a fifth of a glass of cordial to three-fifths chilled water and one-fifth ice, but adjust to personal taste. Be very wary of going too strong however.
No wonder you said “cork securely” Stoney. This sounds more potent and brutal than the ginger beer we used to make in Qld in the “70’s”.
If you remember it the metal screw lids expanded upwards into a dome shape and had to be “detonated” with a nail and hammer through the centre of the lid; and very carefully too. Only then could the bottles be opened.
But, aahh, what a nice drop that was to sup. Perhaps you will have to be sitting down “securely” to taste your brew!
Thanks, when I started gardening a couple of years ago I assumed I’d be mainly growing food. I was wrong. What with the cider (just a couple of gallons), grape wine (ditto), apple & plum wines (loads), damson gin (like sloe gin, only with damsons) and now lovage cordial, I’m growing my own pub!
It’s ironic that despite the antique wording and “back to the roots” recipe, you recommend using processed white sugar.
The original recipe called for a “2lb cone of sugar”, I used a modern equivalent. Where’s the incongruity in that? Or are you one of those sniffily superior hippies who believe refined sugar is poisonous because it has been depleted of its life forces? I suppose you’ll be criticising our use of butter and lard next.
Butter, at least, is minimally processed- like good cider. Refined white sugar… not so much. If sugar is required, maybe evaporated cane juice for the purists? Thanks for the recipe, cheers!
Evaporated cane juice is sugar. If you take 100g of ” evaporated cane juice” and 100g of refined whie sugar, then they’re essentially the same in terms of their make-up. The first may be less processed and have a few more vitamins, but it still contains the same amount of simple carbohydrates as refined sugar.
Any diet that’s high in sugars is going to have health implications. And what sort of diets are higher in sugars? Heavily processed, industrial foods. We, on the other hand, produce most of our own food, don’t add sugar to most things and when we do eat foots that contain added sugars we consume them sparingly.
So don’t kid yourself that you’ll be any healthier for substituting 50-60kg of evaporated cane juice a year for 50-60kg of refined sugar. You won’t.
As for us, we’ll continue using various sugars, both refined and unrefined, as appropriate to our recipes and we’ll continue to eat foods with added sugar in moderation.