Why Rowan Deserves a Place in Your Kitchen

The rowan, or mountain ash, is one of our most storied trees. You will find it in the Highlands and the Welsh hills, its feathery leaves and scarlet berry clusters bright against a grey autumn sky. Our ancestors called it the witchen tree and planted it by the door to keep ill luck out; a cross of rowan bound with red thread was sewn into coats, and milk was stirred with a rowan stick to stop it curdling. Taboos about cutting the tree linger in some villages, so a wise forager picks berries, not branches.

The berries are tart, faintly bitter and rich in vitamin C, and they are best cooked — eaten raw in quantity they can upset the stomach, because parasorbic acid is broken down by heat into harmless sorbic acid. This is why rowan jelly, liqueur and cordial have such a long history in British kitchens.

Foraging with Respect

Rowan berries ripen from late August into October. Wait until they are deep orange-red and slightly soft; a frost is often said to sweeten them, but for a cooked cordial that matters less than you might think.

• Pick from abundance. Take a handful from each tree and leave the rest for redwings, fieldfares and blackbirds, who rely on this crop through the winter.
• Avoid busy roads and sprayed land. Berries deep in a hedgerow are cleaner than those on a lay-by verge.
• Check the tree, not just the berry. Rowan has pinnate leaves with up to fifteen serrated leaflets, silvery bark, and orange-red berries in flat clusters. If in doubt, leave it.
• Ask permission. On private land, always. Picking fruit and berries for your own use is a long-accepted practice, but the law is not kind to trespassers.

Preparing the Berries

Strip the berries from their stalks with a fork, discarding leaves, green berries and any that are soft or blackened, then rinse them in a colander. A night in the freezer is a useful trick: it breaks down the cell walls so the juice runs freely, and it takes some of the astringent edge off. An hour will do if you are impatient.

The Cordial: Sweetened with Honey or Apple

Refined sugar is not needed here. Rowan's tartness plays beautifully against honey and against the natural sweetness of cloudy apple juice. My preferred batch uses both, with the apple doing the structural work and the honey finishing the flavour.

You will need 600g rowan berries, 1.2 litres water, 500ml cloudy apple juice, 150–250g honey, the juice of one lemon, and any of these you fancy: a cinnamon stick, a few cloves, a strip of orange peel, a slice of fresh root ginger.

Put the berries and water in a pan with the spices. Bring to a gentle simmer, cover, and cook for twenty minutes, mashing with a potato masher halfway through. The colour will turn from scarlet to deep amber. Strain through a muslin-lined sieve and let it drip for an hour or two — squeezing makes the cordial cloudy, which is no fault, but it will shorten its life.

Return the liquid to a clean pan and reduce by about a third over a low heat. Stir in the apple juice and cook for two minutes more. Off the heat, stir in the honey and lemon juice. Taste. If it is too sharp, add honey a spoonful at a time; if it is cloying, sharpen with lemon rather than diluting.

Bottling, Keeping and Drinking

Pour into sterilised bottles while still hot, seal, and invert for five minutes to sterilise the lids. Because of the honey this is not a syrup that will sit in a cupboard for years — treat it as a seasonal preserve. Cool and dark, it keeps two to three months unopened, and a month in the fridge once opened. For something longer-lived, freeze it in clean plastic bottles, leaving headspace.

Dilute one part cordial to four or five parts hot water for a warming autumn drink, or with cold sparkling water and a strip of orange peel. It is very good mulled with star anise and a slice of apple, spooned over vanilla ice cream, or used as a glaze for venison and duck.

Beyond the Bottle

The cordial is only one use for this generous tree. Rowan wood — hard, pale and fine-grained — has made tool handles, spinning wheel parts, spindles and walking sticks for centuries, and the berries yield a soft orange dye with alum. A jar of berries steeped in spirit with a little honey gives you the beginnings of a traditional liqueur. But start with the cordial: it is the simplest way to bring rowan folklore into the kitchen, and to taste autumn properly.