Rose water recipe

Rose water is very easy to make yourself and it's a perfect gift as you can keep it up to one year after it was made. Rose water can be used for many things as it can be used as a luxury skin toner, to soothe sunburn, to give fragrance to your home made soap, in food recipes, in Gin tonic cocktails etc...

There are two ways to make rose water: By cooking and by distilling. Both give an excellent result but the cooking method gives a more colored result. The distilling method results in a more translucent water. 

For the cooking method you need:

# cooking pan with lid 

# 1 liter or 4,2 US cups of distilled water or reverse osmosis water 

# 300 grams or 10 US ounces of very fragrant organic rose petals 

# Sieve, strainer or cheese cloth 

# little clean bottles to bottle the rose water 

Preparation: 

Pour your distilled water in the pan and add your very fragrant rose petals. Bring to the boil with the lid on. Once the water is boiling you take off the lid and turn the heat down till you get a gentle simmer. Let it simmer for 30 minutes and turn off the heat. Let it cool down completely, strain and pour into your little bottles 

Distilled method:

# 1 liter or 4,2 US cups of distilled water or reverse osmosis water 

# 300 grams or 10 US ounces of very fragrant organic rose petals 

# Deep soup pan with lid 

# glass bowl 🥣 heat proof 

# ice cubes (enough) 

# little bottles to bottle the water 

# rack or heat proof bowl 

Preparation:

Place a little rack or a little heat proof bowl upside down in the soup pan. Pour the water into the pan and add the rose petals. Now place your glass bowl onto the rack or your upside down bowl. Take the lid from your soup pan and put it upside down on the pan. Now turn on the heat. Once it starts to boil you put ice cubes onto the lid. The cold cubes will make the boiling water to condensate against the lid and it will drip into your glass bowl. Have a kitchen towel or kitchen paper at hand to absorb the melting water of the cubes on top of your lid. After 20 minutes you take a look inside your soup pan if the water is almost evaporated and dropped into your glass bowl. Once your water is almost completely evaporated you remove the pan from the heat. Don't let the pan run dry with the heat still on. Take the glass bowl with the now rose water off the rack or stand and let it cool down. Pour into your little bottles. Now it can be stored up to one year. 

The best roses to use are Damasks, Portlands, very fragrant Hybrid Teas, very fragrant DA roses like Abraham Darby and Evelyn and any other very fragrant varieties from your garden. 

Making your own rose water is very easy and cheap