You’ve probably seen them before and not given them a second thought- often a scraggly little plant with feathery leaves and yellow petal-less flowers, usually growing from a crack in the driveway or by a path on your daily dog walk route. You know you’ve got the right stuff if you pinch the flower head and it smells of pineapple.
I managed to rescue a couple of plants from my drive and now have a relatively happy pot that I harvested the flowers from for this wild food experiment…
I assume you can just scale it up but proceed with caution if you plan to make a decent amount.
Makes: Depends on how many flower heads you collect and how much vodka you use, really
Prep and cook time: 4 days
Keeps: can be stored for 12 months. Will stay fresh for about 4 weeks once opened
Ingredients
- As many pineapple weed flowers as you can find (at least 20 but try to collect 50 or more)
- 100g Sugar
- 150ml Water
- 200ml Vodka
Equipment
- Small Saucepan
- Small measuring jug
- Jar with lid x2
- 250ml glass bottle with lid
Method
- Pop half of the flowers into one of the jars, add the vodka and secure the lid
- Pop the other half of the flowers into the other jar, add the sugar and secure the lid
- Give the vodka jar a shake a couple of times a day for the next three days
- Give the sugar jar a good shake and leave overnight
- Transfer the sugar and pineapple weed flowers to the saucepan and add the water
- Bring it to a boil then simmer for a couple of minutes before removing from the heat, covering the pan and leaving it overnight
- Strain the syrup back into its jar
- Strain the vodka into the measuring jug and add the syrup
- Pour into a sterilised bottle and enjoy!
Your pineapple weed liqueur is now ready. The best part- it doesn’t need to be aged, you can tuck in immediately.
So, is the effort worth it?
Apparently it is good simply poured over an ice cube. Keep an eye on the Sussex Smokehouse socials to see if the effort is worthwhile- I can’t wait to give it a try!
