We have two varieties of lilacs. One has lovely blooms and a nice fragrance but a bitter flavor. The other variety is "Miss Kim" and is a pale purple with a delicate spicy scent and pleasant floral flavor. Just about anything edible gets made into wine at least once around here. This is the second year for lilac wine. The first was excellent.We just finished making a one gallon batch of lilac wine. We didn't get a lot of flowers on the Miss Kim lilac this year but we look forward to sipping the results next May. I'm not sure that I mind that there weren't many lilacs to pick. Pulling off the petals is a little tedious. This picture may make it look like we had a lot, but it is only about one cup of petals.
I'm sipping a little of last year's batch while I write. It has a lovely delicate flavor and is perfect for enjoying on a warm spring evening. This year's lilac wine is a lilac apple blend. It may sound a little unusual but hopefully it will equal the lilac, dried pear and elderberry blossom wine that I'm enjoying now. We have had some wines that have been a bit disappointing so it is fun when we are pleased with the results.
7 comments:
I LUV the smell of lilacs, and perfume that smells like lilacs but not sure about wine? However, I am willing to try it! We recently enjoyed the bottle you gave us, thanks!
Really interesting! I did not know lilacs were edible and I didn't know you could make wine from them! Last week I made rose petal tea - it was a fun experiment, but, the tea tasted like PERFUME! Not good! Enjoy your wine!
I wondered what rose petals would be like in wine. Lilac wine can have a perfume smell too but it works if a small amount is used with fruit. The taste also improved in the fermenting process. What I would really like to try in wine is rose hips but I don't have room to grow anything else.
I've heard of making perfume from lilacs, but never wine. Hard to imagine all the work that goes into pulling off the teeny tiny petals. I luv the photo of all the plucked petals.
donna
I'm so curious about Lilac wine, is it sweet? You sure make some interesting wines Chris.
We find that we like the lilac wine best if it is just slightly sweet. That works best with the delicate flavor.
We just kind of stumbled across the idea of making lilac wine. First we had a dandelion wine we just loved that was made by my brother-in-law. Next we tried a wonderful lilac wine made by a winery in North Dakota. Both of those wines convinced us to try making wines with flower petals. It has been fun.
What a fantastic idea. We're about to make fig wine (if we can keep the squirrels off them) but I've never heard of lilac wine. Would you be willing to share the recipe?
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