By Anders Lorenzen
Elderflower cordial is the taste of early summer—but making your own is not just nostalgic; it’s sustainable. With just a handful of ingredients and minimal energy, this DIY recipe cuts costs and emissions. Better yet, foraged flowers mean zero food miles.
Our local environment, whether rural or urban, is more abundant with edible plants than we may know.
A glass of elderflower cordial represents for many the start of summer.
Why make your own elderflower cordial?
But instead of buying a bottle in your local shop or supermarket, making it yourself is remarkably simple. Additionally, your wallet and your planet will thank you for it.
The elder tree: A biodiversity hero
Depending on the weather, the elder tree(Sambucus nigra), which flowers in May and June and has berries ready to harvest around August, is abundant in many places in the northern hemisphere. The species plays a crucial role in biodiversity.
The elder tree is a biodiversity hotspot, particularly valuable in hedgerows, woodland edges, and urban green spaces.
It supports bees, hoverflies, and moths, which feed on the flowers as they are rich in nectar and pollen.
Elder flowers attract over 50 species in the UK alone.
Later in the year, dark elderberries are a key autumn food for several birds, including blackbirds, thrushes, starlings, and warblers. Small mammals like dormice and wood mice also forage on the berries.
In addition, birds use the elder tree for nesting and shelter. The tree’s decaying wood supports fungi and several invertebrates, such as beetles, spiders, and springtails.
Carbon sequestration and the elder tree
The elder tree also moderately contributes to capturing and sequestering carbon.
As they are fast-growing trees, they can capture carbon quickly during their active years of around 60 years. Their fast biomass accumulation contributes to short-term carbon uptake, which is helpful in restoration and agroforestry contexts.
Their leaf litter decomposes quickly, enriching soil organic carbon and feeding the soil microbiome, critical for long-term sequestration.
Its roots can help stabilise soil, preventing erosion and locking in carbon in root structures and microbial communities.
One mature tree would capture 5–15 kg CO₂/year, depending on site and size.
In hedgerow networks, especially when combined with other shrubs and trees, they become part of a carbon-sequestering mosaic that improves wildlife’s landscape connectivity.
How to harvest elderflowers responsibly
To make elderflower cordial, we need to harvest the flowers.
As the plant plays a vital role in local wildlife, we must take what we need. An essence yields around 20 litres, enough to make two litres of elderflower cordial, which you will then dilute by ten; all you need is 15 flowerheads.
As you will see in the recipe below, due to its very few ingredients, this elderflower cordial recipe has a very low carbon footprint of 0.566 kg CO₂e, which is equivalent to driving a petrol car for around 2.3 kilometres.
Given that the average price of the supermarket equivalent product of this recipe would be £16, you can make significant savings by making it yourself with very little effort.
Recipe: sustainable elderflower cordial (0.566 kg CO₂e)
Makes: 2 litres concentrate (dilutes to ~20 litres cordial)
Prep time: 20 minutes
Resting: Overnight
Ingredients:
15 elderflower heads (0 CO₂e when handpicked)
3 lemons (0.0792 kg CO₂e)
600 g sugar (0.39 kg CO₂e)
2 litres of water (0 CO₂e)
1 tsp of citric acid (0.0966 kg CO₂e)
Method:
1: Cut any leaves of the flowerheads, rinse them and place them in a large bowl.
2: Slice the lemons.
3: Add water, sugar and the sliced lemons in a saucepan on medium heat.
4: Once it starts to boil, remove it from the heat and pour the mixture over the elderflower heads.
5: Let it cool and put it in the fridge overnight or for at least 12 hours.
6: Using a sieve, separate the flower heads from the water mixture.
7: Add the citric acid and mix.
8: Fill your bottles and store them in the fridge or freezer.
All that’s left is to make your cordial — we’d love to hear how it turns out! Share your results or tips with us in the comments.
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