Festive Floral Infused Gin

Photography by Sharon Cosgrove.

This recipe gives a delicious floral and slight spicy flavour, but if you don’t have all the ingredients feel free to leave some of them out - as long as you have plenty of scented rose petals and some sugar it will taste gorgeous.

The dried hibiscus flowers will enhance the pink colour but is totally optional. If most of the rose petals you are using are pink or red you won’t need it.

120g scented rose petals
30g carnation petals
10 sweet geranium leaves
15 cucumber flowers
10 black peppercorns
A pinch of dried hibiscus flowers (optional)
100g sugar
1 litre gin (a supermarket own brand is fine, you don’t want anything too flavoured)

Pluck the rose petals off the flowers and give them a gentle wash if needed. Do the same for the carnation flowers.

Wash the sweet geranium leaves and give the cucumber flowers a gentle tap to remove any little bugs.

Put the sugar in a 2 litre mason jar. Add the rose petals, carnation petals, sweet geranium leaves and cucumber flowers. Add the black peppercorns and dried hibiscus (if using). Top up the jar with the gin. Give the mixture a stir to encourage the sugar to dissolve, but don’t worry too much, it will dissolve slowly over time.

Leave in a cool dark place for two weeks. Give it a shake or stir every so often to encourage the sugar to dissolve. And taste occasionally to see how the flavour is developing. I left this batch for exactly two weeks and was delighted with the flavour.

To serve we mixed 35ml gin with 15ml lemon juice and then topped up with tonic. But I think it would also be fave with pink grapefruit or raspberries.

What’s your favourite festive cocktail? Let me know in the comments below.