Rose Water

The other day, I was reading, "Good Old Days" magazine to my residents at work, and came across a recipe for rosewater, and immediately wanted to try it! There are a couple rose bushes in the alley behind our house that are all in bloom right now. One makes copious"wild rose" type blossoms, so I felt at liberty to clip about a gallon that were on their way out. (They don't belong to anybody).

 

First I tried a method where you put a small container in the middle of the pot, and invert the pot's lid, so that when the petals in water boil, the condensation drips down off the knob handle to collect in the dish. I put ice on top of the lid to hasten the condensation formation. The liquid that ended up in the catcher dish was totally clear, though it did smell like roses.

 

I had a bunch more petals and had really hoped for a colored liquid, so I just boiled the rest of the petals gently for maybe 45 minutes, left it to cool, and strained it. This is the result:

 

 

 

It made about 8 cups total. I added 2/3 cup vodka to preserve it. I'm not sure what to do with it--I tend to pass over recipes that call for persnickety ingredients like rosewater. Once I had a rose flavored smoothie that was quite good, and I've heard people splash this stuff on their face. We'll see.