10 Floral Fermented Drinks to Celebrate Spring

Floral fermented drinks start with flowers steeped in sugar water, honey or sweet tea. Yeast turns that into a flower wine or a fizzy elderflower “champagne”, and a SCOBY turns it into kombucha or jun. Elderflower champagne is ready in under two weeks, while lilac, violet and chamomile wines need months before they’re worth opening.

Every amount below comes from the published recipe named with it. Two of the ten, jasmine jun and honeysuckle mead, are described without a recipe.

The Ten at a Glance

The times add up each source’s fermenting, bottling and aging steps. They’re the shortest path each recipe gives, not a promise that your batch will taste finished on that day.

Before You Start

• Pick clean flowers. Use blossoms you can name with certainty, from plants that haven’t been sprayed. Practical Self Reliance tells you to pick away from roadsides and to strip every stem and green part from lilacs and violets.
• Sanitize everything. BBC Good Food asks you to read its equipment-cleaning and home-brewing safety guides before starting, and every vessel, cloth and bottle in its recipe is sterilized or sanitized.
• Watch the pressure. Sealed bottles keep building gas. The kombucha recipes below call for pressure-resistant flip-top bottles and a daily check, and BBC Good Food vents its elderflower bottles by lightly opening the lids.
• Mind your water. Imbibe’s kombucha recipe notes that if you use tap water, you can leave it out on the counter for 24 hours so the chlorine evaporates.

1. Elderflower Champagne

The British hedgerow fizz, made when elder bushes are covered in creamy flower heads in late spring. Many older recipes trust the wild yeast on the blossoms. BBC Good Food adds a sachet of champagne yeast instead, which gives the batch a reliable start.

From BBC Good Food (makes a 10-litre batch):

• 1.8 kg sugar
• 18 heads of elderflower
• 8 lemons, zested and juiced
• 5 g sachet dry champagne yeast
• Two 12-litre fermenting buckets, ideally with airlock lids, and sterilized muslin

How it goes: Dissolve the sugar in 4 litres of just-boiled water in one bucket, then add 6 litres of cold water. Shake any bugs off the flowers and strip the florets from the heads with a fork. Once the sugar water has cooled to 20C, stir in the zest, juice, flowers and yeast. Cover and leave it out of direct sunlight for six days.

Strain through sanitized muslin into the second bucket and give it a couple of hours for the last pollen and sediment to settle. Siphon into sanitized wine or fizzy-drink bottles, seal, and leave them somewhere cool and dark for five days. Check the fizz by easing the lids open to let excess gas out, and move the bottles to the fridge if they’re lively.

BBC Good Food’s recipe says that with 1.6 kg of sugar it shouldn’t finish above 8% ABV, and with 2 kg it reaches about 10%.

2. Lilac Wine

Lilac wine keeps the sweet scent of a lilac bush long after the blooms drop. It’s a slow one. The flowers come out after a week or so, but the wine needs months in secondary and in the bottle.

From Practical Self Reliance (makes about 1 gallon, roughly 4 bottles):

• 6 cups lilac blossoms, stems and green parts removed
• 5 1/2 to 6 cups sugar
• 1 handful blueberries, optional, for color
• 3 to 4 medium lemons, juiced
• 1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
• 1/8 teaspoon tannin powder, optional
• Wine yeast

How it goes: Put the cleaned blossoms in your fermenter. Boil 2 to 3 quarts of water, dissolve the sugar in it with the blueberries if you’re using them, and let the syrup cool completely. Pour it over the flowers and add the lemon juice, yeast nutrient and tannin. Rehydrate the yeast in a small cup of water for at least 5 minutes before adding it.

Fit a water lock and let it ferment for 7 to 10 days. Siphon the wine off the flowers and sediment into a clean fermenter and leave it in secondary for 2 to 3 months, or up to 6. Bottle it, store it somewhere cool and dark, and give it at least 2 months in the bottle. The recipe prefers 6.

3. Rose and Strawberry Kombucha

Rose petals, honey and sliced strawberries go into plain kombucha for a day, which turns it pink and floral. Dried rose petals work too.

From Revolution Fermentation:

• 1 kombucha SCOBY and its starter liquid
• 12 g tea
• 180 g sugar
• 2.5 litres chlorine-free or filtered water
• 40 g honey
• The petals of 3 large roses or 8 wild roses in full bloom, dried is fine
• 10 to 20 ripe strawberries, sliced

How it goes: Put the tea in your jar, pour in 500 ml of hot water and let it steep for 15 minutes. Stir in the sugar until it dissolves, then add filtered water up to the 3-litre mark. Add the SCOBY, cover with a cloth and a rubber band, and ferment at room temperature for 10 to 15 days. Start tasting around day 5 and every two days after that. You want it a little more sour than sweet, since honey goes in next.

Set the SCOBY aside with 350 ml of the kombucha for your next batch. Stir the rose petals, honey and strawberries into the rest, cover with the cloth and leave it 12 to 24 hours at room temperature. Strain it (or leave the petals and berries in, since they look good), bottle in pressure-resistant bottles and keep them at room temperature for a few days. Check the pressure once a day and move the bottles somewhere cool once they’re fizzy.

4. Violet Wine or Mead

Wild violets carpet lawns in early spring, and a quart of them makes a gallon of wine. Garden pansies are a cultivated violet, and Practical Self Reliance says the same recipe works for pansy wine. Swap the sugar for honey and it becomes a violet mead.

From Practical Self Reliance (makes about 1 gallon, roughly 4 bottles):

• 1 quart violets, loosely packed
• 6 cups sugar, or 1/2 to 1 cup less if you use grape juice
• A few blueberries, optional, for color
• 4 to 6 cups white grape juice, for body (sugar wine only)
• 1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
• 1/4 cup lemon juice, or 1 teaspoon acid blend
• 1/8 teaspoon tannin powder
• Wine yeast
• Water to fill

How it goes: Strip all the green parts from the violets and put the flowers in your primary fermenter. Boil a few quarts of water, dissolve the sugar (and the blueberries, if using) and let it cool. Pour it over the flowers, then add the lemon juice, tannin, yeast nutrient and grape juice. Rehydrate the yeast in a little water for 10 minutes and add it last. Top up with water to just below the top of the carboy and fit a water lock.

Ferment for 7 to 10 days. Siphon into a clean carboy, leaving the sediment behind and straining out the flowers, then top up to the neck. Give it 2 to 3 months in secondary, or 4 to 6 months for mead. Taste and adjust, bottle with corks, and let it age for 6 months or longer.

5. Dandelion Wine

The yellow heads that pop up across every lawn in spring. This is the fastest wine on the list, since the Allrecipes version is bottled once the bubbling stops.

From Allrecipes (makes four 1-quart jars):

• 1 quart yellow dandelion blossoms, well rinsed
• 1 gallon boiling water
• 8 cups white sugar
• 1 orange, sliced
• 1 lemon slice
• 1 (0.18 ounce) package wine yeast

How it goes: Drop the blossoms into the boiling water for 4 minutes, then lift them out and throw them away. Let the water cool to 90F, about 10 minutes. Stir in the sugar, orange, lemon and yeast, pour it into a plastic fermenter and attach a fermentation lock. Leave it somewhere cool until the bubbles stop, 10 to 14 days.

Siphon the wine off the sediment, strain it through cheesecloth and bottle it in four sterilized 1-quart canning jars. Age it at least a week for the best flavor.

6. Hibiscus Kombucha

Hibiscus turns kombucha deep red and gives it a tart edge. Nourished Kitchen keeps the hibiscus out of the main brew and adds it as a sweetened tea in the second ferment.

From Nourished Kitchen (makes 4 pints):

First ferment

• 8 cups water
• 2 tablespoons loose-leaf black tea
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 kombucha SCOBY
• 1 cup prepared kombucha, from a previous batch or store-bought unpasteurized kombucha

Second ferment

• 1/4 cup dried hibiscus flowers
• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup sugar

How it goes: Bring the 8 cups of water to a rolling boil and turn off the heat. Stir in the tea and 1 cup of sugar until it dissolves, steep for 10 to 15 minutes and strain. Once it’s at room temperature, pour it into a gallon jar, stir in the prepared kombucha and add the SCOBY. Cover with a cloth and a rubber band and leave it somewhere warm and dark, ideally 75 to 85F, for 7 to 14 days. The longer it goes, the more sour it gets.

When it tastes pleasantly tart, set the SCOBY aside with 1 cup of kombucha for your next batch. Boil the water for the hibiscus, turn off the heat, stir in the flowers and 1/4 cup of sugar, and let it cool to room temperature. Strain, pressing the flowers. You should have about 1/2 cup of hibiscus tea. Stir it into the kombucha and divide it among four 16-ounce flip-top bottles. Leave them 2 to 3 days, burping them once a day, then refrigerate at least 3 more days before serving. Nourished Kitchen says to keep it in the fridge and drink it within 3 months.

7. Lavender Lemonade Kombucha

Lemon juice and lavender go straight into the bottles here, so the floral part takes two days. Imbibe published the recipe from Stephen Lee’s book Kombucha Revolution.

From Imbibe (makes 1 gallon):

• 14 cups purified water
• 8 to 10 teabags or 4 tablespoons loose-leaf black tea
• 8 to 10 teabags or 4 tablespoons loose-leaf green tea
• 1 cup evaporated cane sugar
• 2 cups starter tea (plain raw kombucha, store-bought or homebrewed)
• 1 SCOBY
• 1/2 cup lemon juice, about 4 lemons
• 12 teaspoons fresh or 4 teaspoons dried lavender blossoms

How it goes: Bring 6 cups of the water to a boil and take it off the heat. Add both teas, stir and cover, and steep for 4 minutes, stirring once at the 2-minute mark. Remove the tea and dissolve the sugar. Add the other 8 cups of water to bring it down to about room temperature, 72F or cooler, then stir in the starter tea. Pour it into a 1-gallon jar, lay the SCOBY on top and cover with cheesecloth. Leave it in a warm spot, 72 to 78F, out of direct sunlight for 7 days. Taste it through a straw, and give it a few more days if it’s still too sweet.

Lift out the SCOBY, keeping 2 cups of kombucha if you’re starting another batch. Divide the lemon juice and lavender among your bottles, about 1 tablespoon of juice and 1 1/2 teaspoons of fresh lavender per 16-ounce bottle. Fill them with kombucha, leaving about an inch of air at the top, and cap tightly. Leave them at room temperature for 48 hours, then refrigerate. Strain as you serve if you like.

8. Jasmine Green Tea Jun

Jun is kombucha’s honey-fed cousin: green tea sweetened with raw honey and fermented with its own SCOBY. Nourished Kitchen describes it as mild and delicate, with the floral notes of honey, and says jun carries slightly more alcohol than kombucha, though both contain very little. Brewing it with jasmine green tea, the green tea scented with jasmine blossoms, carries that scent into the jun.

Nourished Kitchen also stresses raw honey, since pasteurized honey can stop jun from culturing properly. For the base method, see our jun tea recipe .

9. Honeysuckle Mead

Mead is honey wine, and honeysuckle mead is mead flavored with the blossoms, made when the vines flower in late spring and early summer. The old BJCP mead guidelines list honeysuckle flowers among the flowers brewers use in herbal meads.

Only the flowers go in. Honeysuckles vary a lot from species to species, so know exactly which plant you’re picking from.

10. Chamomile Wine or Mead

Dried chamomile from the pantry means you don’t have to wait for anything to bloom. Practical Self Reliance also lists a kitchen swap for each winemaking additive.

From Practical Self Reliance (makes about 1 gallon, roughly 4 bottles):

• 1/2 cup dried chamomile flowers
• 2 1/2 pounds sugar (about 2 cups per pound), or 3 pounds honey for mead
• 1 teaspoon yeast nutrient, or 1/8 cup chopped raisins
• 2 teaspoons acid blend, or 1/2 orange, zested and juiced
• 1/4 teaspoon tannin powder, or 1 cup strongly brewed black tea
• Wine yeast

How it goes: Bring a few quarts of water to a boil, take it off the heat and add the chamomile, plus the raisins, black tea, orange zest and juice if you’re using them. Cover and steep for 15 minutes. Stir in the sugar or honey until it dissolves and let it cool for 10 more minutes. Strain it into your fermenter and add any nutrient, acid blend or tannin powder. Rehydrate the yeast in room-temperature water for 10 minutes, add it, then top up with water to the neck of the carboy and fit a water lock.

Ferment for 7 to 14 days, then siphon into a clean vessel, top up with water and seal again. Leave it until it clears, 4 to 6 weeks for wine or about 4 months for mead. Taste, adjust, bottle with corks and age it for several months before you open it.

Common Questions

Is flower wine alcoholic?

Yes. Lilac, violet, dandelion and chamomile wine are fermented with wine yeast just like grape wine, and elderflower champagne is too. How strong it gets comes down to the sugar. BBC Good Food says its elderflower champagne shouldn’t finish above 8% ABV with 1.6 kg of sugar and reaches about 10% with 2 kg.

What does flower wine taste like?

Mostly like a light white wine with the flower’s scent on top. Fermented all the way out, it’s drier than many people expect. Practical Self Reliance notes that its lilac wine comes out much less sweet when it ferments to completion, and that the yeast’s alcohol tolerance decides how much sweetness stays.

How do you ferment hibiscus?

The simplest route is a second ferment. Brew plain kombucha first, then stir in a cooled, sweetened hibiscus tea and bottle it. Nourished Kitchen’s version, in item 6 above, uses 1/4 cup of dried hibiscus and 1/4 cup of sugar for a gallon batch.

How long should homemade flower wine sit before drinking?

It depends on the recipe. The Allrecipes dandelion wine needs at least a week after bottling. Practical Self Reliance wants its lilac wine to sit at least 2 months in the bottle and preferably 6, and its violet wine to age 6 months or longer.

Are kombucha and jun alcoholic?

Both contain a little alcohol from fermentation. Nourished Kitchen says jun has slightly more than kombucha, but that both contain very little in total.

Can you ferment any flower?

No. Use flowers you know are edible, from plants that haven’t been sprayed, and strip the stems and green parts the way the lilac and violet recipes do. Florist bouquets and flowers from treated garden beds don’t belong in a ferment.

More Ferments to Try

• Spring kombucha flavors for fruit and herb second ferments
• Homemade kombucha for beginners if you need to start a SCOBY first
• Water kefir flavors for second fermentation
• Elderflower cordial for an unfermented elderflower drink