Refreshing summer cocktails are a must, this time of year. Summertime drinks are so much fresher, more vibrant and colourful. Belvoir, the people who make the delicious elderflower drinks paired up with the Disappearing Dining Club to show us how to match dishes with a selection of Belvoir summer cocktails. Here are some of the dishes that they prepared, paired with the delicious summer drinks.
Beetroot, rose and elderflower cured salmon
Blueberry and blackcurrant beef
Belvoir ginger beer battered cod
Elderflower jellied eel
Rhubarb and apple jelly incorporating Belvoir Rhubarb and Apple Presse
Belvoir Fruity Cocktails
Belvoir Fruity Cocktails
The elderflower flavour is so popular today that you find them in gin, alco pops, jellies and even used to make prosecco cocktails. I always have a bottle ready for a refreshing drink and have been using the cordials to make granita. (Just make an extra sweet solution, freeze and just use a fork to break up the ice crystals and serve.)
The story of Belvoir Food Farms
Belvoir is one of the first company to introduce the elderflower cordial to mass consumers. Belvoir started off as a small family business. Their homemade elderflower cordial was originally made in their kitchen. In the first year, they made 84 cases, about 900 bottles. The whole family was involved; mum made the cordial, their nanny squeezed the lemons and his dad went around selling it from the back of his car.
Belvoir have over 5000 elderflower trees in their 90 acre plantation. Every year in June, for a short time when these trees flower, the flowers are picked, infused and made into this fragrant cordial. They bring in hundreds of people from the local community to help them harvest the elderflowers that are used in their cordials. Some of these people have been returning for over 20 years and have become like family.
Their elderflower cordial is made with lots of fresh flowers picked on the same day, still with the pollen on them. Today it is still made the same way but in a much larger scale.
Today, they are still harvesting by hand but the processing is in a much bigger operation. Pev Manners, the son of the founder, believes in constantly innovating and introducing new products. Belvoir is now sold across the world, a long way from their little kitchen table business. Millions of bottles of their iconic Elderflower cordial and other drinks are shipped out yearly.
They use only natural ingredients and real sugar (not artificial sugars) in their drinks.
How to make Elderflower cordial
When the elderflowers are picked, they are put in a vat of water within 3 hours. Sugar and lemon juice is added and left to infuse for at least a day or up to two days. They drain it and filter it through brewery quality filters, which results in a lovely clear drink.
EatCookExplore was a guest of Belvoir Fruit Farms
Leave a Reply