Elderflower cordial tastes like cabbage!!

[Trovindia]

I picked some elder flowers yesterday and made cordial with them. Previously when I've done this it's been far too sweet so I followed a low sugar recipe which used honey/ golden syrup instead. It said to let it infuse overnight after boiling it a little and then reboil it after straining to reduce it down a bit.

But during the second boiling it went really dark and I just tasted a teaspoon and it tastes like cabbage water! It's disgusting and I'm going to have to throw it away.

I'm pretty disappointed because I've made call Julia in the past and it's tasted nice but just far too sweet which is why I want it less sugar.

Does anyone know why this might have happened? Unfortunately I don't have time or energy to go and get more elder flowers, so I'll just have to not have any homemade cordial this year, but I'd like to learn what went wrong for next time. I did remove all the long stalks as I know that can make it bitter.

I think it will be skipping the sugar which will have been the issue

Agree about the honey. If you want to make honey-sweetened cordial, start off with light sugar step and then bring it up to full sweetened by adding honey when it's cold.

Did you make sure to remove all the stems? They change the flavour horribly.

BTW I would never boil elderflowers. They're far too delicate. Steep them in cold sugar syrup for a few days, then strain, tweak flavour, and bottle.

If you want to make something low sugar, just add less sugar (possibly sub with no sugar sweeteners if truly no sugar). Honey takes on the flavour of whatever it was made from (so can be quite strong) and golden syrup is just processed sugar syrup. Neither are low sugar, but could taste strange in a cordial. Can’t explain the cabbage taste but my guess is the sweetners used or just letting it sit so long.