Elderflower syrup substitutes

Dried elderflower heads, sold as herbal tea, steeped and turned into syrup.

Best for

Hugo spritz, lemonade and spritzers, sorbet and granita, soaking sponge cakes, jellies and fruit salads

Prep

Steep, strain, sweeten, acidify with lemon; cool before using in drinks.

This is not a compromise, it is the ingredient. Dried elderflower is stocked by health food shops, Turkish and Polish groceries, tea shops and online herb suppliers, and it holds its aroma well. Steep three tablespoons of the dried flowers in 250 ml of just-boiled water, covered, for fifteen minutes; strain through a fine sieve; dissolve 250 g of caster sugar into the hot liquid; then stir in the juice of half a lemon, which both brightens the flavour and helps the syrup keep. The result is slightly paler and a touch less honeyed than a commercial bottle, and you can push it either way with more sugar or a longer steep. It keeps two to three weeks in a clean jar in the fridge. If you have fresh elderflower heads in June, use about eight of them, shaken free of insects and snipped away from every trace of green stem.

A sweet, low-strength spirit made with elderflower, around twenty per cent alcohol.

Best for

Hugo spritz, cocktails and sparkling wine drinks, fruit salads for adults, brushing onto cakes

Prep

Add a squeeze of lemon or lime alongside it to replace the syrup's acidity.

The obvious answer if you have a bottle, and in a Hugo it is arguably the more common modern version of the drink. The aroma is unmistakably right. What changes is the sweetness profile and, obviously, the alcohol. Liqueur is less sharply lemony than syrup and noticeably rounder and more honeyed, sometimes with a pear or candied-fruit note, so a Hugo made with it tastes softer and richer and less like a summer lemonade. Add a squeeze of lime or lemon to bring the edge back. It is a poor swap in anything you plan to serve to children or anyone avoiding alcohol, and in a sorbet the alcohol will keep the mixture soft and slushy rather than firm, so use no more than two tablespoons per litre there.

The sweet packing syrup from canned lychees, or bottled lychee juice.

Best for

Hugo spritz and sparkling drinks, lemonade, sorbet and ice cream, fruit salads, mocktails

Prep

Strain it, add a squeeze of lemon per 50 ml, and reduce it gently on the stove if you want it thicker.

This is the best-kept trick in the substitution and it comes down to chemistry: lychee and elderflower share a strongly grapey, muscat-like floral note, so a drink made with lychee syrup smells right in a way that no plain syrup does. It is thinner and less concentrated than elderflower syrup, and its sweetness is more tropical and rounded with a slightly perfumed, almost rose-like edge instead of elderflower's cleaner, hay-and-honey quality. Add a good squeeze of lemon, because tinned lychee syrup has almost no acidity, and use a little more than the recipe asks for since it is weaker. In a Hugo with prosecco, soda, mint and lime, most people would simply enjoy it and not query it.

Grape juice from an aromatic variety, simmered down to a syrupy concentration.

Best for

spritzers and sparkling drinks, sorbet, cake soaks, poaching fruit, alcohol-free versions of Austrian summer drinks

Prep

Simmer uncovered until reduced by half, cool, then add lemon juice to taste.

Muscat grapes carry exactly the floral, faintly grapey perfume that people are reaching for when they reach for elderflower, and non-alcoholic muscat and white grape juices are widely sold. Simmer 200 ml down to about 100 ml over medium heat, no sugar needed, then add a squeeze of lemon. The result is noticeably grapier and less delicate than elderflower, with a fuller, jammier body and a slight cooked-fruit note from the reduction, so a spritz made with it tastes more like a fruit drink and less like a flower. It is a good honest substitute rather than a disguise. Plain white grape juice with no muscat character works too but tastes mostly of sugar.

Sugar syrup rebuilt to imitate elderflower's sweetness, acidity and floral note.

Best for

lemonade and spritzers, cake soaks, poaching fruit, anywhere the syrup is a background note

Prep

Add the floral water off the heat, one drop at a time, tasting after each.

The pantry answer, and the important thing is to build all three of the syrup's jobs rather than only the sugar. For every 100 ml of simple syrup, stir in two teaspoons of lemon juice and one or two drops, no more, of orange blossom water. The lemon puts back the sharpness that stops a drink tasting cloying; the floral water puts back a whisper of perfume. It will not fool anyone who knows elderflower, because orange blossom is a distinctly different flower, more citrusy and soapy where elderflower is grapey and hay-like. Overdo the floral water by even a quarter teaspoon and the drink tastes of pot-pourri, so add it drop by drop and taste. Rose water works the same way and is a slightly poorer match.

A ready-mixed, lightly sweetened sparkling elderflower drink.

Best for

Hugo spritz, long alcohol-free drinks, jellies and granitas, punch bowls

Prep

Use it as the diluent rather than as the sweetener; taste and add sugar syrup only if needed.

Widely sold and often overlooked. It contains the right flavour, just heavily diluted, so it cannot be used spoon for spoon. In a Hugo, pour the prosecco over ice with mint and lime and top with presse in place of both the syrup and the soda water; the drink comes out lighter, less sweet and slightly less perfumed than the original, which many people prefer. It is no use at all where the recipe wants a concentrated syrup, as in a sorbet, a cake soak or a jelly, because the sugar and flavour are simply too dilute. You can reduce it on the stove, but the aroma is delicate and boiling drives much of it off, so add a spoonful of dried elderflower to the pan if you go that route.