Elderberry syrup is one of the few old-fashioned kitchen remedies that still earns its shelf space. It tastes good, it takes an afternoon, and the main ingredient grows in hedgerows all over Britain from late summer. The catch is that elderberries sit right on the line between food and not-food: cook them properly and you get a rich, dark syrup; skip a step and you get a stomach ache you will remember.

What follows is the recipe most years, plus the foraging notes that matter more than the recipe itself. Read the identification section before you pick anything.

Identifying elder in the UK

Elder, Sambucus nigra, is a shrub or small tree of hedgerows, woodland edges, railway banks, churchyards and waste ground. It likes disturbed, nitrogen-rich soil and often grows in the same spot year after year, so it is worth noting a good bush in June when the flowers give it away.

• Leaves: opposite each other, pinnate, usually five to seven oval leaflets with sharply serrated edges. Crush one and it smells rank and slightly musty.
• Flowers: flat, creamy-white plates roughly the width of a saucer, June to July, with a heavy sweet scent.
• Berries: tiny — about 5mm — round, glossy and purple-black, hanging in drooping clusters on reddish-purple stalks.
• Bark: grey-brown, deeply fissured and corky on older wood, often with soft pith inside the twigs.

Lookalikes to leave alone

Dwarf elder or danewort (Sambucus ebulus) grows low and herbaceous rather than as a woody shrub, smells unpleasant, and holds its berries in upright clusters. It is not a kitchen ingredient. Dogwood (Cornus sanguinea) also carries black berries in clusters, but its leaves are whole, not divided into leaflets, and the veins curve towards the leaf tip like a bow. Black bryony scrambles through hedges with heart-shaped leaves and berries in long strings. None of these belong in a syrup.

The working rule is simple: if you are not certain, walk away. There is always another bush.

When and how to pick

In most of the UK the berries are ready from late August into September, sometimes October in the north. Pick when the clusters are fully dark and the berries give slightly under a fingertip. Do not pick a bush that is half green and half black; wait a week.

1. Choose a dry morning after the dew has lifted.
2. Avoid busy roadside verges and field edges that may have been sprayed.
3. Ask permission on private land, and never strip a bush bare in a nature reserve or on a site with protection.
4. Take a basket or a paper bag rather than a sealed plastic one, which sweats and turns the fruit to mush.
5. At home, freeze the whole heads for an hour, then rub them over a bowl. The berries drop off and the stalks stay behind.

Preparing elderberries safely

Elderberries should not be eaten raw. They contain cyanogenic compounds, which cooking destroys, and the green parts of the plant hold more of them than the ripe fruit. Take the time to pick out green berries, leaves and as much of the red or green stalk as you can. Use a stainless steel, enamel or glass pan — aluminium reacts with the fruit acid and gives the syrup a grey tinge and metallic taste.

Cook them, strain them, and don't taste the raw fruit to check if it's ready. Ripeness is a colour test, not a flavour test.

The elderberry syrup recipe

Ingredients

• 400g fresh ripe elderberries, stripped from the stalks (or 200g dried)
• 500ml water
• A thumb of fresh ginger, sliced, or 1 teaspoon dried
• 4 cloves, or 1 cinnamon stick
• 250ml runny honey

Method

1. Tip the berries into a heavy pan and add the water. Bring to a gentle simmer.
2. Add the ginger and spices. Simmer uncovered for 25 to 30 minutes, until the liquid has reduced by roughly half. Mash the fruit against the side of the pan with a potato masher halfway through.
3. Take off the heat and strain through a double layer of muslin set in a sieve. Let it drip; squeezing makes the syrup cloudy, though it does no harm.
4. Leave the liquid to cool until it is lukewarm — comfortably below 40°C, so you can hold the pan comfortably. Stir in the honey until it dissolves completely.
5. Pour into sterilised bottles and label with the date.

This makes roughly 400ml, depending on how far you reduce it.

Variations

Swap the ginger for a few strips of orange peel, or leave the spices out entirely for a cleaner fruit flavour. If you want a longer-keeping version, add two tablespoons of brandy or vodka per bottle. Dried elderberries make a perfectly good syrup out of season; simmer them for 40 minutes instead.

Bottling and storing

Wash bottles in hot soapy water, rinse, and dry them in a low oven for ten minutes. Fill while the syrup is cool, seal, and keep in the fridge. A plain honey syrup lasts about two to three months chilled; frozen in small pots it keeps for six months or more, and the alcoholic version holds far longer in a cool cupboard. If it smells fizzy, sour or of vinegar, bin it.

Using it — and when to ask someone else

A teaspoonful a day through the winter is the usual kitchen habit, with a spoonful every few hours at the first sign of a cold, though elderberry syrup is a food rather than a licensed medicine and there is no official UK dose. Treat it as a pleasant, traditional comfort rather than a treatment, and see your GP if you are genuinely unwell.

Some people should check first. Honey must not be given to babies under twelve months because of the risk of infant botulism. If you are pregnant or breastfeeding, taking regular medication, or have a health condition that affects your immune system, speak to a pharmacist, GP or qualified herbalist before using it regularly. And if you are foraging with children, make the identification rules clear before anyone starts filling a bucket — that is the part of the day worth getting right.

Photo: congerdesign / Pixabay