Our wild food expert, John Wright, says: "If you watched the programme you will know how careful I am not about quantities. I never measure anything so the weights and measures given below are ever so slightly guessed! The important thing with the rosehip and alexanders recipes is to make sure that the alcohol forms at least 70 per cent of what goes into the bottle and that the syrup you make is very sweet - this ensures that fermentation and the sticky explosion that follows it will not occur."
1. Crush the rosehips with a pestle and mortar or roughly chop them. Place them in a saucepan, add the boiling water, bring back to the boil and boil vigorously for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and leave them to stand for half an hour.
2. Crush the rosehips again in the pan using a potato masher, then strain all the pulp and liquid through a double layer of muslin. Suspend the muslin bag above a bowl and let it drip for an hour.
3. Return the strained liquid to a clean saucepan, bring back to the boil and reduce the juice to one third of its original volume.
4. Remove from the heat and stir in the sugar until dissolved. When the solution is cool, add it to half a litre of vodka or white rum and seal in a sterilised bottle.
1. Crush the fennel seeds in a pestle and mortar then add them to the vodka or white rum.
2. Leave to steep for an hour then strain through a coffee filter before pouring into a sterilised bottle.
3. Add a sprig of feathery fennel leaves before sealing.
1. Liquidise the alexanders in a blender.
2. Over a bowl and using a double thickness of muslin, squeeze out as much juice as you can from the blended alexanders then filter the liquid through a coffee filter paper into a saucepan.
3. Bring the liquid to the boil then turn off the heat and add the sugar, stirring to dissolve. When cool, combine with four or five times the volume of vodka or white rum to the quantity of alexanders. Pour into a sterilised bottle, adding some alexanders seeds if you can find them before sealing the bottle.
© River Cottage
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