Elderflower Liqueur from dried flowers

[Hope Springs Distillery]

Has anyone tried making elderflower liqueur with dried flowers?  If you have, have you had a problem with the smell of the stuff?

[Foreshot]

I made a tincture of it. 100g ETOH to 20g Elderflower. There is a slight earthy/musty aromatic to it. Flavor wise it's great. I believe I got mine from Herbco (Monterey Bay Spice Co).

[Hope Springs Distillery]

Thanks, Foreshot.  Question:  ETOH at what proof.  And did you distill at all?  I made my first passes at pretty high proof with a lot of elderflower, thinking I would be watering it down quite a bit to 40 proof, and wanted to maintain the flavor.  That seems to have been a serious error in judgment, due to the aforementioned noxious smell.

 

[Foreshot]

190 proof. Not distilled as it's for an amaro.

[Terry at RVS]

We are making ours using only fresh picked, de-stemmed elderblossoms and macerating them for six to eight weeks. The dried just doesn't have the floral nose and the flavor is not the same. Also, the dried won't include a significant amount of pollen, which is important to the flavor profile. 

We are planting more elderberry plants this spring for future production. They don't take many years to mature to flower/fruit bearing. We only collect part of the plants blossoms and allow the rest to fruit. We use the  elderberries to make Elderberry Flavored Vodka (w/o sugar). It's classified as a  "Flavored Vodka" despite being naturally infused with whole fruit, and has no added flavors of any kind.

It's a trade-off on the bushes... every elderblossom cluster you pick is that much less elderberry fruit you will be able to harvest.

[Terry at RVS]

By the way, it is critical to de-stem the blossoms since the stems contain a cyanide inducing glycoside. Same goes for the elderberries. Also, do not use unripe elderberries.