Make Your Own Champagne!

We at Bliss love champagne and quaff it in vast quantities. Champagne is our favorite tipple, it's so cool, bubbly and refreshing. There's nothing better than a glass of cold bubbly on a warm summers' day in the garden.
It's drunk while doing a spot of light gardening, we're having a glass or two while reading a book, it's imbibed whenever the mood strikes us, because mmmmmmmm utter bliss!

And you haven't heard the best bit yet; it's so easy to make and it won't cost the earth either, so you can afford swilling the stuff like there's no tomorrow.

But enough of waxing lyrically about champagne, I'd best get on with telling you how to make the stuff yourself, so that you can drink it in vast quantities too. You can never have enough champagne, that's one of my motto's, and a good one it is too, even if I do say so myself.

As the Bliss team are firm believers in spreading lots of bliss around, here's the recipe for elderberry flower champagne.

Ingredients:

- 6 elderberry flowers (Sambucus nigra)


- 1 lemon
Buy it in a health food store or grow your own like I do. Don't use lemons that have been sprayed with all kinds of unhealthy stuff.

- 1 1/2 tablespoon of white wine vinegar
- 3 litres of water
- 1/2 kilo of sugar

Bring 400 ml of water to the boil, add the sugar and stir until all the sugar is dissolved.
Take it off the heat and let it cool to room temperature.

Wash and squeeze the lemon and cut the peel into pieces.
Put the juice and the peel in a big pot or pan. Add the elderberry flowers, 1 1/2 table spoon of white wine vinegar and 2.6 litres of water and stir. Add the sugar water and stir again.
Put the lid on and wait for 4 days, don't forget to stir every now and again.

After 4 days strain the elderberry flower liquid through a sieve. I always put a bit of muslin in my sieve to catch everything that is not supposed to go into the liquid.
Pour the elderberry flower liquid into clean bottles with a screw top.
Once in the bottle, gas will form, resulting into lots of bubbles. This process takes on average about two weeks. Because explosions can happen, store the bottles somewhere safe and and be sure to check them once a week and release some of the pressure, if necessary . When there's bubbles from top to bottom in the bottle, chill the elderberry flower champagne and as soon as it has the right temperature, drink it. It's non alcoholic so everyone can join in the fun. Be sure to open the bottle above the kitchen sink, champagne eruptions can happen. Cheers!

I'm only a beer teetotaller, not a champagne teetotaller. G. Bernard Shaw