summer food and drink: mint syrup
Jul 28, 2010 
If you are a semi-lazy gardener like me, you might not be so vigilant keeping your mint in quarantine in your garden. I actually did go to the trouble of burying a terra cotta pot in the my veggie patch – but that dastardly, determined mint beat me and sent plucky runners out all over the garden.
When it came time for my mid-summer clean-up, I ripped up as much mint as I could, which left me with way more mint on my hands than I could drink in mojitios (and that’s a lot of mint, folks). So I turned to this magic mint syrup elixir. Like all my favorite preserving recipes, you smash everything up, add liquid, let it soak overnight, and then finish it the next day. It’s sort of remedial preserving, since you don’t have to fuss around with precise timing and boiling points. And all the while, your house smells like a Candyland board game come to life, with the sweet-spicy smell of mint forests heavy in the air.
A good glug of this syrup makes everything taste like summer: add some to lemonade, cocktails, or plain seltzer water. And if you’re still hankering to keep making after the syrup is done, doodle up a couple simple labels and presto! You’ve solved a problem in the garden plus you have sweet hostess gifts to last the rest of the season. Sha-bam!
This recipe is adapted from my all-time favorite preserving book, The River Cottage Preserves Handbook by Pam Corbin, which is now available in the US, hooray!
Mint Syrup (makes about four cups)
About a cup of fresh mint leaves
Juice from 1 lemon
2 cups sugar, more or less to taste
1 teaspoon sea salt
Tear the leaves into shreds. Squeeze lemon juice into a large bowl. Add the mint and pound with the end of a wooden rolling pin. Add the sugar and the salt and continue to crush the mint leaves to release their menthol essence. Leave 8-10 hours or overnight to macerate.
Pour 2 cups boiling water over the mint mixture and leave to stand another 12 hours.
Strain the syrup through a very fine sieve into saucepan. Gently bring to simmering point and simmer for a few minutes. Pour into warm, sterilized jars or bottles and seal. The syrup will keep unopened for a couple months. Once opened, store in the fridge.
mint, mint syrup, preserving, syrup in food and drink
Reader Comments (13)
Couldn't agree more, best preserving book ever. (Thanks for that tip last fall...) I just made this same recipe earlier this week. Love it.
Nothing takes me back to summer days as a kid quite like the smell of fresh mint leaves. I grew up in Southern California and there was mint growing rampant right outside my bedroom window.
That recipe sounds like it would make a very useful syrup! And what a great gift idea, too.
Just when my mint needs a haircut! :) About how long do you think it will keep in the frig? And my local library has the book! :))
HI Lizabeth, what a great library you must have! As for the syrup keeping, I am fairly cavalier about this, and by no means an authority, I have a jar still going from about a month ago and it seems just fine to me.
Mmm yummy!
I like to make faux mojitos, basically everything except the rum. This syrup would be perfect for them. Also I wonder how it would taste in hot chocolate. Since there is a nice amount of sugar in there I bet milk and a good cocoa powder like Scharffenberger or Green and Blacks would be all you need and would be yummy!
Oooh how about drizzled on vanilla or chocolate ice cream? :)
I spent summers with an Amish family as a child, and the smell of mint always takes me back there. Esther had this recipe that she would call summer tea, and it was a mix of peppermint and spearmint (which both grew wildly behind the barn).
I live in the city and I brought some back with me once, and planted them in something of a rock bed once (dirt with a layer of rocks over it, and the only separation from that and the yard was a border of bricks about an inch deap into the yard. They grew nicely in their corner and never spread. And we still haven't run out of mint.
I have tons of mint and just love having the fragrance in the garden and the house. Never know what todo with it to hang on to that minty summery-ness. Mint jelly is far too ambitious. But I think I could manage this.
Oh, that sounds lekker to me ;*)
I will definitely try it.
Thanks! I am adding this to my to-do list for Christmas presents this year!!
This is absolutely brilliant! Kelly, you remind me how simple things make life so very lovely.
This was one of those posts where I just smacked my head and said "of COURSE!". You're brilliant, Kelly. Love the simplicity of this - especially since I'll be making it a lot. Thanks.
I was looking for some ideas for my mint and I am so glad I found this. Thank you so much!
do you process the jars? or just seal? and, if you just seal, it keeps ok in the frig? amazing.