3 | Making Violet Syrup

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Hi, everyone.Welcome to In the Clinic with Camille.

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Well, I had such high hopes for putting

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out an episode every single weekand then the Corona virus hit.

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And I'm just barely keeping my little head

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above water with work and kidsand my clients and so forth.

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So have not been ableto record very many episodes.

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But I did promise some of you

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an episode about making violet syrupsince the violets are still out.

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At least where I am in Virginia.

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And for those of you who are in

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more Northern climates, they'llprobably be out for quite some time.

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I wanted to share a littlebit about how this works.

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If you have ever tried it before.

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So violet syrupis made out of just the violet,

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the violet flowers themselves, and ittakes quite a while to harvest enough.

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You have to have a good chunk of time

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outside or some willing helpersto help you with the harvest.

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And of course,

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you want to pick them from areas that havenot been sprayed and so forth.

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So what you do is you go out and you just

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start picking the flowerparts of the violet.

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Now, most people already know what Violetis and what it looks like.

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But if you're not sure,you certainly want to look it up and make

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sure you are properlyidentifying the violet.

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There's a bunch of different species.

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Doesn't particularly matter what speciesyou have, although in my opinion, the more

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the more of a lovely odor your violetshave, the better the syrup is going to be.

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So if you have several types of violetin your yard, you may want to do a little

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sniff test and see which ones you likethe smell of best and go for those.

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It is fine to use any of the wild violets,

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though, that you can find around as longas you're sure that that's what they are.

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All right.So go ahead.

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Pick a whole bunch of violets.

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I usually for if I'm just making a batchof violet syrup for my family,

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personal use,I will try to gather something

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in the range of two to three cups worth. Iusually take out

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a Mason jar and just put them in there.

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Try to leave as much of the green behindas you can and just get the purple part.

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So for the best violet syrup,in my opinion, you do not want the calix,

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which is that green partat the base of the flower.

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And you don't want the stems,you only want the purple petals and they

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will turn a little greenat the base as well.

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So try to focus on those and fillup about two to three cups.

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Now, when you get them back inside,

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if you are worried that,you know, your pets have been

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urinating on them, et cetera,you may want to give them a little rinse.

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And if there is any green left on there,you might need to remove the calix,

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might need to remove somestems and leaves and so forth.

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You can leave them in,but your color won't be as pretty.

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So if you don't care about the color.

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Feel free to go the easy route and just

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leave a few stems and the calix,the calices on there.

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Right.So now you've got two to three cups.

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It'll probably shrink down a little bitonce you get that green out of there.

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So maybe one and a half cups

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of violet flowers petals and the next thingyou're going to do is boil some water.

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Filtered or distilled is good.

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If you have hard water,it can affect the color.

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So do what you can do there.

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If you if that's all you'vegot and that's what you got.

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Go for it.Boil the water.

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Let it cool a little bit.

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You don't want it to be actually boiling,but just let it cool a little bit

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and then go ahead and pourit over your violet flowers.

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I will usually if I put them in a mason

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jar, I will try to coverthem plus an inch or two.

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That's kind of what I do.

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I just eyeball it and then you're goingto cover it with a piece of cloth.

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The teapot lid, whatever you want to do,

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cover it up with somethingand leave it for 24 hours.

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Just let it sit there, going to see thecolors start to change right away.

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It's really pretty.It's nice for kids to come and check on it

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every now and thenand then after it's set for at least

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overnight, but ideally for a full day,then what you're going to do is strain it.

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You can strain, you know,strain it with just a regular sieve.

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If you have something more fine.

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That would be great.

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And then measure how much liquid you have.

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Cause you're gonna discard

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the leftover flowers and just workwith the liquid at this point.

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So measure how much you haveand then whatever that amount is.

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Either one and a half or double it and

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Add that much sugar.

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So if you wind up with a cup of liquid,

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you either want one and a half cupsof sugar or two cups of sugar.

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I find that it's better to just gowith a regular old white sugar here.

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This is not the most nutritious recipe,

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by the way, although it's lovely and Ithink that's nutritious for the heart.

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So anyway, one and a half to two times

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the amount of sugar in it, add bothof those things to a pot over a stove.

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You heat it over really,really, really low heat.

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Like really low heat.

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OK, just very gently heat it and youstir it until the sugar dissolves.

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You don't want it to boil.

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It will affect the colouronce the sugar has all dissolved.

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Give it a few more good stirsjust to make double sure.

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And go ahead and remove it from the heat.

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Now, if you want to make the color more

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vibrant, you can adda little bit of lemon to it.

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You can also add a single blueberry.

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A frozen blueberry or two.

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And that will deepenthe color a little bit.

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You would then just take it out afterfive or 10 minutes.

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But those are some options that you can

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you can use to deepenor brighten the color.

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It's going to be really, really pretty.

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At this point,

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what's that's done,you let it sit there until it's cool

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and then you can put a lid on itand keep it in the fridge.

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It'll keep for anywhere between two

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and six months, depending on howmuch sugar you used and so forth.

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And now you have this beautiful,beautiful syrup that you can use.

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Now, you may be asking,what am I going to do with this, Camille?

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Like, is that it's not a particularlyhealthy preparation in terms of its sugar

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content, but it is so beautiful,the smell of it.

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Just just take a little whiff of it before

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you put it away, because it's trulydelicate, exquisite and gorgeous.

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What you can do with thissyrup is are many things.

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One, you can use it like youwould any other kind of syrup.

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So you can drizzle a teeny little bit ona super high quality vanilla ice cream.

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It's very pretty.Very tasty.

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You can put a little bit on yourpancakes or your waffles.

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That's a really nice thing to do,especially if you've garnished them

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with some violet flowers or nasturtiumflowers later in the season and so forth.

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So that's something that you can do.

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You can make fancy beverages out of it.

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You can add a little bit to your tea if

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you need a little sweetener, dependingon what kind of tea, the nervines.

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I find that the violet syrupis nice and calming, relaxing.

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You can add it to either icetea or hot tea as a sweetener.

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You can add it to baked goods to get

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a little bit of extra flavor whenyou're mixing up your dough.

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You can make an alcoholicbeverage out of it.

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My favorite alcoholic beverage out of this

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is to do about an ounce of gin,an ounce and a half, two

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If you're really goin for it,the time of the virus.

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So add some gin,add about half a lemon to a whole lemon.

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I like sour, soI go with the whole lemon.

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And then I will add anywhere between halfa teaspoon sorry, half a tablespoon to two

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tablespoons of the violet syrupand fill the rest with a sparkling water.

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And then I garnish it with a littlemint or a little lemon balm.

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And that makes a truly beautifullight lavender, refreshing beverage.

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That's really nice, and it also pairswell with anything vanilla flavor.

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So if you have a vanilla vodka or

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any other type of vanilla drink,it will go nicely with that as well.

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OK.So I think those are OK.

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The other thing you can do with it that's

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really, really beautiful is you can adda little bit of it to fresh cream and whip

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it to make a lavender whipped cream,which is really nice for dipping things

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and like strawberries, which arecoming into season where I live.

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And you can also add it to icing on cakes.

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So if you were making like a wild foraged

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cake of some sort and you wanted to makeand cream cheese icing or a

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coconut manna icing or something like

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that, you can add a little bitof lavender syrup to tint it.

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And again, if you want to add the flavor I'm sorry,

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the color more intense,you can also add a little bit

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of blueberry, which would giveit that more of that blue color.

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And that's another thingyou could do as well.

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OK.

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So that's what I have for youabout making lavender syrup.

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When would you use it medicinally?

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In my opinion, you would use itmedicinally for lifting the spirits,

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which I think is what we need right now.

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It's a fun project to do.

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It's something that you can spend quitea lot of time picking your violets.

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You can make it and leave it for gifts as

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your neighbors with someinstructions if you like.

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And hopefully that'll bea fun project for y'all.

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I will be back with more directlyrelevant clinical information soon.

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Hopefully very, very soon,hopefully next week.

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If you have any questions, requests, etc,

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please let me know and I wouldlove to answer your questions.

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All right.Take care, everybody.

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Stay safe.