Best Flowers or Herbs for Wine or Mead

[Raptor99]

We are expanding our garden, so I would be interested in suggestions from those of you who make flower or herb wines. I am thinking espeially of perennials, since we want to get them established and harvest year after year. I live in USDA zone 8a, so I need plants that will grow here. What are your top three flowers or herbs to use in making wine?

Some of the herbs we are planting are medicinal herbs, so I will experiment with using them to make mead or wine. In that categroy, I am growing yarrow and will plant licorice root and marshmallow. We have some lemon balm growing wild, so I have been following the adventures of @BigDaveK with that. Cooking herbs such as rosemary and sage are also good in mead. Herbs and spice that I have used in wine or mead but do not grow include cinammon, cloves, all spice, star anise. There are probably some others, but that is what comes to mind right now.

 

[BigDaveK]

Another adventurer!
Off the top of my head...

Anise hyssop is wonderful if you like the anise/licorice flavor. Will make it again this year. A plus - of all my flowers the bees love this the most, hands down.
Honeysuckle was wonderful! Invasive, have it everywhere, going to a 3-gallon batch and a dessert batch. As a side note, the anise hyssop and honeysuckle were good both dry and sweetened which surprised me. The cultivated varieties of honeysuckle from big box stores taste awful.
Lemon balm is nice, gather before it blooms, and be careful - the citronella can overpower.
I planted marshmallow last year. The flowers have zero flavor but the root is what we want. It needs to be 2+ years old so I may explore that this year.
Another I planted last year is the elecampane. Again, it's the 2+ year old root. Maybe this year.

Some I didn't get to last year -
Lilac should be blooming soon. Hope to try.
Lavender, very disappointed I didn't get to it.
Tong Ho chrysanthemum, on the list still, maybe this year.
I grow fennel and dill and I'm interested.
Yarrow, grows everywhere, didn't get to it.
I'll be growing a variety of basil this year. Last year I didn't think my Genovese basil would work but who knows.
Bramble tips. The wild blackberries are invasive and I'm really going to try this year.
My sumac didn't flower last year! Very disappointed, maybe this year.

There's more. Time is the issue. I need a crew, dammit.

 

[BarrelMonkey]

Elderflower! But in my experience, not all cultivars have that wonderful aroma... I have one of the European ones which is lovely, but my two American cultivars (Nova, York) have barely any scent... still produce good fruit though.

 

[vinny]

You commented on the post that inspired me to try rose petal wine, so it might already be on your radar. I am only as far along as buying the petals, but they smell amazing.

I am very interested to see how this one is going to turn out.

Clover shared her recipe. She was excited I asked and told her husband. His response was, well, It is your best wine, hands down....

 

[Vinobeau]

Wild Rose petals, 2 quarts per gallon.
Dried Hibiscus flowers, 2 oz per gallon.
Dill is my main choice for an herb, usually added to the two flowers noted.

On a side note, leaves are a great option; grape leaves & tendrils, Black Walnut leaves, Maple leaves, and Oak leaves make for interesting wines.

 

[Raptor99]

Wild Rose petals, 2 quarts per gallon.

I assume that is fresh rose petals? That would be a lot of dried petals!

 

[Vinobeau]

Yes fresh, and they are rather small, only 5 petals on each flower.

 

[TheSeed]

Herbs and spices I've used in mead/wine:

Herbs (comments are taste from my personal outcome, NOT established collective information)
*Rose petals - smooth but noticeably floral
*Rose hips - more fruit but still smooth and tad floral
Rose hips+petals together - Fruity and aromatic, leaning more floral (was great for peach wine)
*Lavender - overtly floral unless used in small quantity
*Honeysuckle - bright and flavorful, slight tang (warning: invasive)
Rooibos - bright and slightly fruity
Gui Fei Oolong- a bit overly herbaceous and medicinal tasting.
Earl Grey - smooth and interesting, good if you like earl grey tea
*Sweet mint - good mint character when used fresh, poor and vegetal when used dry
*Peppermint (leaves) - slight peppermint when used fresh, hardly any flavor at all used dry
Black tea - good mouth feel, no real discernible tea flavor with quantities I used
*Dandelion - a bit floral, medicinal, and grassy, but in a good way (more ale, than lawn clippings)
*Cilantro - way too vegetal

Spices
Cinnamon - great secondary adjunct (ONLY USE REAL CEYLON CINNAMON - THANK ME LATER)
Vanilla - great secondary adjunct, recommend scraping the beans and making a slurry to add
Allspice - decent when used with other complementary spices like nutmeg and cinnamon
Nutmeg - tastes like nutmeg, great for winter flavor profiles
Black peppercorn - surprisingly fun tangy edge to a traditional mead
Cloves - tastes like clove but must be used VERY sparingly, like 1-2 little clove sticks per gallon

* grew in my garden/yard/friend's property

Other things that went from my garden into a mead/wine:
Jalapenos
Cayenne peppers
Strawberries
Black raspberries

 

[Rice_Guy]

Herbs and spices I've used in mead/wine:

Herbs (comments are taste from my personal outcome, NOT established collective information)
*Rose petals - smooth but noticeably floral
*Rose hips - more fruit but still smooth and tad floral
Rose hips+petals together - Fruity and aromatic, leaning more floral (was great for peach wine)
*Lavender - overtly floral unless used in small quantity
*Honeysuckle - bright and flavorful, slight tang (warning: invasive)
Rooibos - bright and slightly fruity
Gui Fei Oolong- a bit overly herbaceous and medicinal tasting.
Earl Grey - smooth and interesting, good if you like earl grey tea
*Sweet mint - good mint character when used fresh, poor and vegetal when used dry
*Peppermint (leaves) - slight peppermint when used fresh, hardly any flavor at all used dry
Black tea - good mouth feel, no real discernible tea flavor with quantities I used
*Dandelion - a bit floral, medicinal, and grassy, but in a good way (more ale, than lawn clippings)
*Cilantro - way too vegetal

A flavor question? I am looking at a black Locust Flower mead this spring. Should I remove all green? Is it vegital? Will it matter?
Any opinion on how much fresh flower per gallon? Other guidance?

 

[Raptor99]

We have an ornamental cherry tree. So a few weeks ago I collected some petals, and experimented making tea with different amounts of petals, different brew temps, and different brew times. I could not find a flavor that I liked. The fruit flavor was very faint, although it did have an interesting body. If I increased the amount of petals too much, there was a strong vegetative flavor, and the fruit flavor was still very faint. Sugar did not improve the flavor. So I decided not to make wine from cherry blossom petals. Always taste first!

 

[FlamingoEmporium]

Plumeria wine is looking really good in secondary

 

[BarrelMonkey]

First harvest of elderflowers today (at least for wine - I picked some last week to make a (non-alcoholic) syrup:



Looks like there are plenty of flowers left for future batches of elderflower and/or elderberry concoctions...