Rugosa roses grow with abandon along the Maine coastline from June through late summer, and their fragrance is completely intoxicating. One summer long ago when Julia was vacationing in Maine, she decided to bottle that fragrance (and flavor) so she could enjoy it long into winter! She gathered as many petals as she could and steeped them briefly in hot sugar syrup; then cooled down the mixture and strained out the petals. The result was the vibrant pink syrup that you see here, which – believe it or not – can be used in so many ways. When Julia isn’t super ambitious, she pours it over berries or into champagne or wine to make spritzers. When she has more time on her hands, she turns it into a wonderful sorbet. For basic petal-harvesting and syrup-making instructions, see this post on Julia’s blog.
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