Why Dried Berries Make the Best Winter Cordial

By the time the last leaves have come off the oaks, the best of the hedgerow is already behind you — or so it seems, if you think only in fresh fruit. A jar of dried rosehips and elderberries on a dark shelf is the quiet reward for a September afternoon spent on a coastal path or a woodland ride. Simmered slowly with warming spices, they give a cordial that is deep, tart and faintly resinous: a spoonful in a mug of hot water and the whole kitchen smells like a cabin in a Norwegian forest.

This method makes roughly a litre and a half of concentrated syrup. It costs very little if you foraged the berries yourself, keeps for months, and works just as well cold with sparkling water as it does steaming hot with a slice of orange.

Foraging Rosehips and Elderberries

Rosehips are at their best from late September through to the first hard frosts, though a frost is not essential. Pick firm, glossy scarlet hips from dog rose and other wild roses, and leave anything soft, brown or already nibbled by birds. Elderberries hang in flat umbels from late August to early October; take only the black, ripe ones, and leave green berries and red stalks well alone.

• Rosehips: top and tail them, then halve lengthways and scrape out the hairy seeds, which are an irritant. Wear gloves for a large batch, and keep your hands away from your face.
• Elderberries: strip the berries from the stalks with a fork. Never eat them raw — they must be cooked thoroughly.
• Drying: spread the fruit on trays and dry at 50–55°C in a dehydrator, or in an oven on its lowest setting with the door propped ajar for four to six hours. A warm airing cupboard will do the job in a week or two.
• Storing: when a berry snaps rather than squashes, seal it in a labelled jar away from light.

Take modest amounts from any one bush. Rosehips are a vital winter larder for fieldfares, redwings and blackbirds, and on dune paths and sea cliffs you are sharing the crop with migrating thrushes.

The Spice Blend: A Nordic Accent

Nordic cooking leans on cardamom, cinnamon and a touch of something resinous, and that is exactly the register this cordial wants. For a 1.5-litre batch, use:

• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 6 whole cloves
• 2 star anise
• 6 green cardamom pods, bruised with the flat of a knife
• 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
• 20g fresh ginger, sliced, or 1 tablespoon dried ginger
• The pared zest of one unwaxed orange
• 1 vanilla pod, split (optional, but lovely)

Add juniper berries if you have them — four or five, crushed — for a genuinely resinous, forest-floor note. Go gently with cloves; they will bully everything else if you overdo them.

Brewing the Cordial

You will need 100g dried rosehips, 75g dried elderberries, 1.5 litres of water, the spice blend above, the juice of one lemon or 2 teaspoons of citric acid, and roughly 700g sugar per litre of finished liquid.

Put the dried berries and water in a heavy pan and bring to a gentle simmer. Cook, lid slightly ajar, for 35–40 minutes until the fruit is soft and the liquid is a deep garnet red. Add the spices for the last 15 minutes only, so they infuse without turning bitter. Mash the fruit with a potato masher, then take the pan off the heat and leave it to steep, covered, overnight.

Next day, strain through a double layer of muslin over a sieve, letting it drip for several hours rather than squeezing, which clouds the syrup. Measure the liquid, return it to a clean pan with the sugar and lemon juice, and heat gently, stirring, until the sugar has dissolved. Bring just to the edge of a simmer and hold it there for five minutes, skimming any foam. Do not boil it hard, or you will lose the bright, sharp top notes.

Bottling and Keeping

Sterilise your bottles and caps with hot soapy water followed by a rinse in boiling water, or in a low oven at 120°C for fifteen minutes. Fill the bottles while the cordial is still hot, right to the neck, seal immediately and invert for five minutes. Cool, label, and store somewhere dark and cool; it will keep for six months unopened, and for three to four weeks in the fridge once opened. If you would rather not commit to bottles, freeze the syrup in ice-cube trays and bag the cubes.

Drinking It: Flask, Mug and Coast Path

Dilute one part cordial to five parts hot water — a good tablespoon per mug — and finish with a strip of orange peel. It also lifts mulled wine, loosens a spoonful of honey into a hot toddy, and tastes extraordinary cold with soda and a sprig of rosemary.

The real pleasure, though, is a flask of it on a January walk: through beech hangers, along a shingle spit, or up a muddy lane where the sloes are still hanging blue and frost-bitten. Pour it out at a bench with a view of grey water, hands wrapped round the cup, and you have bottled the whole foraging year in one warming mouthful.