Let's Get Fizzy!

Published: Thursday 17 March 2022

Are you looking for a fun activity to get you through the working week or in the lead up to Easter festivities?

Try making Rose Petal Fizz!

This fabulous recipe is a refreshing, non-alcoholic (okay, it can be converted into alcoholic) berverage based on fruit and rose petals. The drink is customisable with all sorts of flavour variations you can play around with including white peach, sweet raspberry, citrusy rhubarb, or just rose petals on their own.

With roses still blooming well into Autumn, it is the perfect time to harvest some petals and bottle some fizz!

WHITE PEACH & ROSE PETAL FIZZ

Ingredients:

18 cups cold filtered water
16 cups scented pink or red rose petals*
2 lemons, halved
3 cups caster sugar
6 ripe white peaches
2 tablespoons white vinegar
Ice cubes, to serve
Champagne or dry prosecco (optional)

Method:

Place four cups of cold filtered water in a large saucepan. Add 12 cups of rose petals. Bring to a simmer over a medium heat.
Cook, stirring occasionally, for 5-7 minutes or until water turns a beautiful rosy colour and petals look grey and colourless. Strain cooking liquid through a fine sieve set over a large heatproof bowl, pressing petals with a wooden spoon to remove as much liquid as possible. Discard solids.
Transfer cooking liquid to a clean saucepan. Juice 1 lemon half. Add lemon juice and sugar to cooking liquid. Place over a low heat and stir until sugar dissolves.
Pour cooking liquid into a large food safe bucket or stockpot. Add remaining cold filtered water and rose petals. Cut peaches into wedges, reserving stones. Crack peach stones and remove kernels. Add peach wedges and kernels to the rose petal mixture.
Roughly chop remaining lemon halves. Add to the rose petal mixture with vinegar. Gently stir to combine. Cover with a clean tea towel and set aside in a cool, dark place for 2 days to develop flavours.
Now it’s time to bottle. As fizz develops in bottles, pressure will build so it’s safer to use a plastic PET bottle with a little give in it. Strain rose petal mixture through a fine sieve into a large jug (don’t press down onto rose petal mixture when straining or fizz will be cloudy). Using a funnel, pour into four sterilised 1L glass bottles (don’t fill bottles to top).
Place in a cool, dark place for 5-7 days or until fine bubbles form. Store in fridge and use within one week. Refrigerating bottles will help retain fizz growth (the warmer the fizz becomes, the more volatile it is).
Place a few ice cubes in each serving glass and pour over the fizz. Alternatively, mix the fizz half and half with champagne or dry prosecco to make the drink a bit more exciting and enjoy!

Note: To create this delicious drink, peaches and rose petals are left to infuse with sugar, lemon and water for a few days, then bottled to create a beautiful fizz with fine bubbles. The colour is amazing – quite pink. You can also make this fizz with rhubarb and rose petals, as well as just with rose petals.

This drink is adapted from a recipe in A Year in a Bottle by Sally Wise (ABC Book, $24.99), plus check out the blog Tamsin’s Table – she is the lady behind this adapted fizz recipe!

*You will need about 30 roses for this recipe. Ensure roses have not been treated with sprays.

The above recipe is from Country Style magazine December 2014 issue.