Today I show you how we made elderberry juice. The juice is a super remedy for the immune system, helps with colds and gives heated the most delicious mulled punch for children. If you want to recreate the juice, you need to do it these days, because right now the elderberries are ripe!
Elderberry supplement is a proven home remedy for colds. The juice has a diaphoretic and expectorant effect and thus helps against cough, cold and fever. It also strengthens the immune system with its valuable ingredients: black elderberry contains a lot of vitamin C, as well as B vitamins and folic acid.
We use the delicious juice but also as a basis for a delicious mulled punch. Mix the elderberry juice with some apple juice, heat it all up and take it outside in a thermos bottle. Tastes much better to me than the most delicious mulled wine and makes so nice warm from the inside.
Even with colds you should drink the juice heated, this increases its effect and the feeling of well-being.
Attention to picking the berries: Please pick only completely black through-colored panicles. Unripe berries contain even more of the toxic sambunigrin, from which prussic acid can be released. The black, ripe berries also still contain some toxin, but this disappears completely when cooked. Therefore, do not eat raw elderberries. You won’t die immediately, and a few raw berries won’t hurt, but if you eat too many raw berries, you may get diarrhea or vomiting.
Ingredients for 2 liters of elderberry juice
- 2 kg of elderberries
- if necessary a handful of hawthorn berries and/or barberries
- water
- 200 g sugar (or more or less, depending on taste)
- 2 pinches of cinnamon
- 3-4 cloves or 1 good pinch of clove powder
- Kitchen utensils needed
- 2 large pots
- 1 strainer (“Flotte Lotte”) or a fine-meshed kitchen sieve
Heat resistant bottles or larger canning jars to fill. In my experience, swing-top bottles from 1-euro stores or drugstores are sometimes not heat resistant. Rather, use bottles that have had tomato passata or other vegetable juices in them, as you can expect them to withstand heat.
How to make it
Again, beware: elderberries can be a real mess. They stain heavily and the stains won’t come out, even possibly from floors or surfaces. That’s why berries that fall on the floor should be picked up carefully right away, wipe down the floor, table or kitchen counter right away and clothes that have gotten stained should be soaked immediately in cold water with washing soda or bile soap.
Now:
- wipe off elderberries.
First, strip the berries from the panicles with a fork, preferably right into the big! cooking pot. Even older children like to do this. - put berries in water
Then, if necessary, add other wild berries such as hawthorn berries and barberries and fill up with water so that the elderberry is just covered. Attention, elderberries float, so you do not immediately notice whether it is already too much water. When filling up with water, stir a little, so you can tell if the elderberries are already floating.
Do NOT add sugar and spices yet!
It is also important that the pot is large enough. When boiling, elderberry curves upward in a strange way and boils over if there is not enough space in the pot. The pot should be filled no more than two-thirds full.
- bring to a boil and simmer
Now bring the elderberry to a boil. When it simmers, reduce the heat and let the juice simmer for about 15-20 min. Keep stirring during this process. - extract juice
After boiling, pass the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer or a fork through a fine-mesh kitchen sieve. Do not add too much berries at once, rather proceed in portions. 5.
Season, bring to the boil and bottle.
When all the juice is strained, pour the juice back into the saucepan and season with sugar. Then add cinnamon and cloves and boil again. While very hot, pour through a funnel into bottles or without a funnel into canning jars. Immediately invert the jars after sealing; this creates a vacuum, which preserves the juice very well.
Another tip: Do not clean bottles soiled from the outside by juice that has run down with cold water immediately after filling! Cold water on very hot bottles can cause the glass to burst.
The juice will keep all winter if the bottles have been well sealed and not opened.
Elderberry mulled punch for children
The tastiest children’s punch is made by mixing the elderberry juice with apple and/or orange juice and heating it. So delicious when it’s cold and damp outside!
We always take this punch to lantern parties, or when we go into the woods in the fall. Sitting in a high seat in the woods drinking elderberry punch: it doesn’t get much more autumnal than that!
The unbreakable, chic stainless steel thermos bottle from mizu (800 ml), which is available in dark gray, white and light turquoise, is perfect for this.
Have fun making juice!