With so many cherry blossoms blooming as early as February around Vancouver Island, it's a great time to do some harvesting and create your own dried cherry blossom sugar rim.
Cherry Blossoms vs. Plum Blossoms
There are many varieties of Cherry Blossoms, the most common being plum blossoms and cherry blossoms. The main difference between the two is that cherry blossoms have a small split at the end of each petal, whereas a plum blossom does not. Whether you use plum or cherry doesn’t really matter as they are both edible and serve our purposes for our sugar rim!
Drying Your Cherry Blossom Petals
We experimented with drying just the petals vs the whole stem with the petals and found that the petals were really what we were after so there was no need to dry the stems as well.
After you’ve picked your petals from the stems, give them a gentle rinse with clean water. Heat your oven to the lowest temperature setting that it has. Mine was 145 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper, and gently lay the petals out on the paper. Place the cookie sheet in your warmed oven and leave the door open slightly to allow for airflow. Heat for 1-4 hours until the petals have dried out.
Cherry Blossom Sugar Rim
Making this Cherry Blossom Sugar Rim is easy now that you’ve dried your petals and it will make your floral cocktail shine!
If you’d like to make a floral sugar rim but you don’t have access to cherry blossoms, you can substitute them for dried lavender.
Ingredients
- 1 part dried cherry blossoms
- 1 part extra-fine sugar
- 1 slice of citrus
Instructions
Combine equal parts dried cherry blossoms and extra-fine sugar in a bowl and mix. If you have regular granulated sugar, you can pop it into a food processor first and pulse until sugar is finer.
Place your sugar mixture into a dish that is wide enough that you can dip your cocktail glass rim into the mixture.
Using your citrus slice, run the fruit along the rim of your glass to get it wet and set fruit aside. Gently press the dampened rim of your glass into your sugar mixture and voila! You have a cherry blossom sugar rim awaiting your cocktail!
Cherry Blossom Cocktail
Recipe
If you love cherry blossoms, you’re going to go wild over this floral gin cocktail that blends Kazuki Gin, Dry Vermouth, and Maraschino Liqueur to create a fragrant floral cocktail just in time for cherry blossom season!
