Which Lavender to use.

Lavender is an easy plant to grow and only really requires a medium sized pot, I treat lavender as a free botanical and as such am never really focused on getting the most extraction out of it, rather getting the best out of it is my aim.

As with quite a few of the key mead herbs, I would encourage you to get some of this growing, it only takes a pot of well drained soil and a nice sunny spot. Growing your own, from a properly identified cutting, or plant from a well regarded herb nursery also ensures you have the best lavender for use in mead.

 Most lavender is technically safe to eat, culinary lavender is typically cultivated from Lavandula angustifolia plants (commonly known as English or “true” lavender) and has a lot less oil and camphor than the aromatic lavenders used in perfumes or soaps.

The camphor is the killer, if the lavender smells like moth balls, it is probably not what you ware wanting to put in your mead. , English lavender is the only Lavender really suitable for culinary purposes.

Even choosing the right lavender does not mean you don't run the risk of creating a mead that smells like grandma's linen cupboard. Too much lavender is always a risk to be aware of, there is a fine line between not getting any flavour and getting a bit too much.

It is this fine line and fine tuning challenge that makes Lavender such a rewarding ingredient to work with. It is a challenge that is worthy of the reward: sipping on a creation with just enough lavender for it be there, but not enough for it to be loud or intrusive at all. This is an achievement worth drinking to.

Using Lavender in primary allows you to be a bit more liberal with it, but also gives you a point of no return. I do small batches of lavender only mead for blending into other meads, this gives a totally different flavour to an extract. It also gives me a well aged product for blending with.

Most of my use of Lavender comes from using it in secondary or even during the initial steps of ageing. I use a hop spider, I use one flower head per five to ten litres of mead and find I have hit flavours spot within three to five days. I remove the hop spider.

It can also be effectively used in a simple syrup, do not hit it with heat, simply add it to the cool syrup and steep for a few days.

Lavender will also work in a spirit base, however be careful of the extraction with higher alcohols, they do tend to bring out some vegetable flavours before they are done with the florals. Replacing the buds with new ones after a day or two ameliorates this risk. 

Young fresh flowers have a lot of green matter, older flowers are effectively dried buds and can bring a crepe paper flavour with a lot of the fresh and herbal aromatics long gone. finding a balance is important.

Dried flowers lack a lot of the aromatics that come with fresh buds and bring that same crepe paper flavour.

I use Lavender with Butterfly Pea flower to create Faerie Tinkle, where the colour, taste and aroma makes perfect sense to the drinker. A touch of rosemary offsets and backs up the lavender and some lemon myrtle brings some herbal citrus notes. The lavender is present, and if one focuses on it could be called the star, but it is not the only note there.

If I were to make lilac wine I would include Lavender in it along with some lemon rind in secondary. I do believe Lavender needs some citrus notes along with a touch of sweetness.

In short, use the right Lavender, pick it when it is in full bloom, drop it in primary for a lavender wine flavour, throw it in secondary for a fresher, more floral and more aromatic impact.

Or make a simple syrup or a blending mead for tweaking or back sweetening.

Be cautious with quantity and timing. Your mead could well end up like soap if you are not careful. But if you get it right, it will make you smile, guaranteed. 

Smiling is good.

Tip: Whenever I use Lavender, and however I use Lavender, I find the addition of Orris Root maintains a lot more aroma over ageing and especially once the bottle is opened.