Garden Parties FLowers in Your Cocktails

There;s a trend now of using flowers to flavor drinks. instead of decorating rims or shooting merrily out of glass herbs and blooms are now being added to cocktail ingredients. They leave a different, more sophisticated taste to liqueurs, They also enhance the drinks' taste as well.



You have to be careful with floral drinks. As with scent , a flower's taste can be overpowering and cloying. Roses may be a romantic idea to put into the drink but rose syrup can b e overly sweet (think of what it does to Middle Eastern pastries). Settle on flowers that work well as teas such as chamomile, nasturtium and wild hibiscus. They only delicately flavor the various ingredients . Another idea is to make a simple syrup and then add the petals. This works well for lavender and some roses. You can also apply this to making dandelion schnapps using regular schnapps, simple syrup nd dandelion heads.

Another idea is simply buying flower distilled spirits. You can try elderflower liqueur, primarily the French St. Germain. It's made with the blossoms of the Swiss elder tree and has a faint lilac smell taste to it. This is the only flower infused drink I know of on the market. For anything else you have to do blend it yourself. Liqueur companies, may hover get onto this trend and we may start seeing nasturtium and wild hibiscus spirits within the next year or two by 2012.

If you want to add a breath of a summer garden to your cocktails then add flowers. They're a new twist and a new taste. Pick a bouquet today for your next party