Basil sparkling water, three ways
The unsweetened infusion, the syrup, and the ratio that makes the finished drink.
In season: June to September outdoors, year-round in a pot on a windowsill. Genovese is the default. Thai basil brings anise and sits better with stone fruit than with berries.
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Infused, unsweetened
Use
1 loosely packed cup of basil leaves, stems discarded, per 1 litre
Method
Leaves only. Basil stems are bitter and they give it up within an hour. Clap the leaves, drop them into cold still water, refrigerate.
Time
2 hours. Basil is slower than mint and faster than anything woody. Past 4 hours it goes soapy and the leaf edges brown.
Sparkling
Still water for the steep, sparkling poured over the strained infusion in the glass.
Keeps
2 days refrigerated with the leaves pulled at 2 hours
The syrup
Ratio
1 cup sugar : 1 cup water : 1 packed cup basil leaves
Method
Dissolve the sugar in the water, take the pan off the heat, wait 2 minutes, then add the basil and cover. Steep 20 minutes. Strain without pressing.
Keeps
10 days refrigerated. Basil syrup browns faster than mint syrup and the flavour follows the colour down inside a week.
Note
Blanch 15 seconds and shock in ice water first if you want it to stay green. Without that step, expect olive brown by day three, which still tastes fine.
The finished soda
1 part syrup to 5 parts sparkling water over ice, with lemon
Basil alone reads oddly savoury in a glass. It works best carrying fruit: half basil syrup and half strawberry or peach syrup is the version people finish.
The shrub version
1 cup crushed strawberries with 1 cup sugar and 1/2 cup basil leaves, 24 hours cold, strained, then 3/4 cup balsamic vinegar. Rest 1 week. Strawberry, basil and balsamic has been a proven trio for a hundred years.
What doesn't work: Simmering the leaves in the syrup for ten minutes. Cooked basil tastes like pesto without the garlic and it turns the syrup army green. The other failure is dropping in whole sprigs with the stems on because it looks better in the jar, since the stems carry the bitterness and release it fast.
Goes with: StrawberryPeachWatermelonLemonRaspberry