Elderberry Syrup

With the 2012 drought, many of our wild edibles and medicinals have had a hard year of it.  Some came ready early, some were very sparse, and some did not even come at all.  One thing 2012 taught us about harvesting wild edibles and medicinals was that we harvest when the plant tells us it is right to harvest, not when man made rules or calendars tell us.

The elderberry bush with its two wild medicinals is one of my most harvested plants.  I harvest the elderflower in late spring and the elderberries usually about now.  This year though the elderberry decided to play a different game.  Every plant decided to come to bloom and berry at a different time.  There was no rhyme or reason to it.  Bushes that were within five feet of each other would bloom weeks apart.  The bushes out by the field ponds, where they get plenty of sunshine, bloomed later, while the ones down at the wooded creek's edge where there is little sunshine bloomed early.  That's the exact opposite of how a "normal" year is.  No, when it comes to wild plants, 2012 was anything but normal.

About a month ago I took the apprentices on a wild plant walk and we found what I figured to be the last vestiges of the 2012 elderberry crop.  We gathered up what we could and returned home to make elderberry syrup.  Because there wasn't much I divided it up between the apprentices and they took it home.  I figured I had just enough to get my little household through the winter months and hopefully we would have an easy spring on colds.

Yesterday I went down to one of the wild cherry groves by a hidden spring to gather chantrelle mushrooms to dry for the coming winter and low and behold I found a whole patch of elderberries in full fruit.  Yay!!!!  So now I have chantrelles drying in the dehydrator and I just made a batch of elderberry syrup, making sure my household will have their immune booster if this ends up being a nasty cold and flu season.

Okay, first let's describe the elderberry bush for those who do not know it.  Elderberries tend to like to grow near water.  While I have seen some on hillsides, the majority of them are in low areas or near water sources.  My spring house is ringed with elderberry bushes, pushing their roots down into the water as if flows out of the spring house.  The elderberry bush has compound leaves.  This means its leaves have a central stalk with many leaflets coming off of it.  On separate stalks come a white umbrelle flower or a bunch of little flowers all together in a domed shape, usually in late spring.  They have a wonderful scent that you can smell long before you come near the plant.  Later in the year these flowers are followed by little green berries that slowly turn deep purple by late summer, early autumn (usually). 

As a warning, only the ripe berries and the flowers are edible.  While not in high amounts, the rest of the plant, including the green berries contain a very low amount of a plant based cyanide.  People hear that and they get scared of the plant, but the amounts are so low that you would have to eat tons of it just to get sick, much less die from it.  Most people couldn't make themselves eat that much even if they were trying to hurt themselves.  It's really nothing to worry about, but something that should be mentioned.

Now the flowers, also called elder blow, are dried in a well ventilated area away from direct sunlight and then stored well sealed so they can't absorb moisture.  Drank in a tea, this flower is one of the three fever reducers that most herbalists know about, elderflower, mint, and yarrow.  They are the best fever reducers because while other plants can lower fever they do so by first raising it so that your body breaks into a sweat.  If a body is already weakened by prolonged fever, raising it, even by a slight amount can wear it out to the point of making the person VERY ill.  Elderflower, mint, and yarrow cause a sweat without raising the body's temperature.  They are the three safest and most effective fever reducers in the herbal world.

Elderberries rival even the most powerful immune system stimulants.  If you feel a cold coming on, a good shot of elderberry syrup will help your body fight off what is attacking it.  Elderberry wine was originally made as a medicine and only later did we decide to drink it as a beverage.  Sambucol is the commercial product made from the black elderberry of Europe as a cough medicine and a cold fighter.  It has been used in Europe for ages and is only now coming to America.  The thing is, our native Common Elder is just as good and free for the using.

So, first gather up the berries.  Because they grow in clusters they are quite easy to gather.  Simply hold a bucket under the clusters and snip them off with a scissors into the bucket.  Try not to take all your berries from one bush for two reasons.  First, these berries are the bush's children.  They grow them to carry on the next generation.  You WANT them to carry on the next generation.  Just in case something happens to those bushes, the berries can plant themselves and you will still have elderberries for years to harvest.  Second is that each of these elder bushes have their own unique DNA.  By getting elderberries from many different bushes means you get many different DNAs to help keep you well.

Once you gather your berry clusters find yourself a quiet place to sit down and comb them off the clusters.  This is a meditation of sorts.  Like witches of old use to meditate while sweeping, a repetitive action (hence why witches and brooms are still linked in the mind of many people), you will be doing a repetitive action to get all the berries ready for the pot.  Take a CLEAN comb or hair pick (I have one reserved strictly for the kitchen) and simply comb the berries off of their clusters into the pot.  You may have to stop from time to time to get a stray twig or unripe berry out of your pot, but that's okay.  This actually goes quite quickly too.

 

 

Then put just enough water to float the berries into your pot.  The water shouldn't cover the berries, just enough so you can see it at the edge.  Put this on the stove and heat it slowly to get the juices out of the berries.

 

Heat this until the berries begin to lose their color.  This can take a long time as you don't want to over heat your berries.  This was four gallons of berries and water and it took close to 8 hours to get to the point.  In the picture about you can see how dark the berries are.  These are fresh berries.  They get much lighter when they are ready to be taken off.

When you feel they are ready (your water should now be a dark purple juice) pour this through a sieve covered with a cloth.  If you have another pan to pour it into this works the best.

 

 

 

Carefully squeeze all the juices out of the elderberries.  This can be hot so sometimes it is easiest to fold the cloth over and press the juices out with something heavy, like a plate with a gallon of vinegar on it.  Once the berries are pretty dry, they can go to the compost pile and the juice can be put back on the stove.

 

Here I add honey.  Elderberries are not very sweet berries and most people do add some sort of sweetener to the juice.  I add about 1 cup of honey for every 1 gallon of juice I have, but you can add what taste best for you.  Since I am canning my juice for storage and I don't want to use the high temperature of a pressure canner, I add lemon juice to raise the acid level of the juice.  This was a little over 3 gallons of juice so I add one cup of lemon juice per gallon plus one to grow on.  Just to be on the safe side I added around 4 and a half cups of lemon juice to this.  You can buy PH test strips if you are nervous if you added enough, or use red cabbage water to make sure your drink is acidy enough for canning in a water bather canner.

 



Then into your scalded jars (jars are scalded by putting them in boiling water for at least 5 minutes) and then into your water bath canner.  Any large pot with a lid works for a water bath canner.  Just make sure you put something down on the bottom of the pot to keep the jars off of it.  I use jar rings or a cooling rack if my water bath canners are busy.  Make certain that your jars are covered with a couple inches of water and set that pot for boiling.

Once you get a good, rolling boil going, time off 30 minutes and then shut off your heat.  Let the boil come to a stop naturally and then you can take off the lid and set your jars on a towel to cool down.

There, you have just made, and made ready for storage a very old remedy for colds and flu.  Store it in a dark place and take it out when you feel a cold coming on.  I usually use a recipe of 1/2 kombucha and 1/2 elderberry syrup for adults, making a glass of this that they can sip on throughout the day or 1/3 kombuch, 1/3 elderberry syrup, 1/3 water for younger people who may not be use to the strong flavor of both other ingredients.  I'll even make up a bottle of this and take it with me if I am going to be in close quarters with many people.  Of course you can't take it on a plane (it might be a dangerous liquid) but you can drink some before you take a flight to help with flight colds that seem to come from flying.  If you can. have a glass of it to sip on when you get off the plane too.

Elder bushes in Europe were called Mother Elder and it was believed if you cut one down you would never have a good garden until you made right with the Elder Spirit.  Here on the North American continent and American Indians called the bush Sister Elder, and said she sang people into wellness.  Amazing how people from two separate worlds found the healer in similar plants and built legends around that healing gift. 

If you can find elder in your area, you have found an amazing friend that will gt you through some of the rough times of the year.  Give her a try and whether you see her as Mother or Sister or just as Friend, she will be there for you when you need her.