Elderflowers On Parade

St. Germain has come marching into Belltown. Not the café from Madison Park, which closed earlier this year, but a French artisanal liqueur subtitled "Délice de Sureau," distilled from freshly picked elderflower blossoms. (The website, stgermain.fr, tells the story, probably aprocryphal, of a cohort of old men on bicycles gathering the flowers.)

Many drinks are based on the elder, a common name for shrubs that grow in northern Europe, most with fragrant blossoms. Steep them in hot water, you get a very pleasant concoction. Coca Cola sells a Fanta called Shokata (only in eastern Europe) that's flavored with elderblossom.

Yamhill Valley Vineyards smuggled some cuttings into Oregon a few years back, made a delicious elderberry-scented riesling.

Elderberry wine, you may recall, was the poisoned cordial in Arsenic and Old Lace; Elton John even recorded an "Elderberry Wine" video using clips from the movie.

Anyway, St. Germain is but the latest use of the elderberry blossom. It won best-of-show at the World Spirits Competition in San Francisco last summer, and is now available in Seattle, at the Basque wine bar Txori, where barman Brett Paulson tops off a shot of the liqueur with bright pink cava rosada. Smells like honeysuckle and pear blossoms, tastes lemony. Very refreshing summer cocktail, just the thing for Txori's open-any-day-now back patio. Now all we need is summer.