Rosemary sparkling water, three ways
The unsweetened infusion, the syrup, and the ratio that makes the finished drink.
In season: Year-round. It is an evergreen shrub, and a supermarket sprig in January is the same thing as a garden sprig in July.
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Infused, unsweetened
Use
2 sprigs, about 4 inches each, per 1 litre. That is less than it looks like it should be.
Method
Bend each sprig in half to crack the stem before it goes in, which opens the resin. Cold still water, refrigerate.
Time
4 hours. Rosemary is slow to start in cold water and then arrives all at once, so taste at 3 hours. Overnight gives you pine cleaner.
Sparkling
Still water for the steep. Rosemary is one of the few where a woody sprig sitting in a finished sparkling glass does no real damage to the bubbles, so it works as a garnish where soft herbs do not.
Keeps
4 days refrigerated with the sprigs pulled at 4 hours. It outlasts soft herbs because there is no leaf matter breaking down in the jar.
The syrup
Ratio
1 cup sugar : 1 cup water : 2 sprigs rosemary, 4 inches each
Method
Bring the sugar and water to a simmer, drop the sprigs in, simmer 2 minutes, then off the heat and steep 20 minutes covered. Taste at 10 minutes and pull the sprigs the moment it tastes like rosemary rather than merely of it.
Keeps
4 weeks refrigerated, longer than most syrups here. Rosemary oil is mildly antimicrobial and the batch is stable.
Note
Two sprigs is the entire amount for a full cup of sugar. Three is too many. This is the herb people overshoot hardest.
The finished soda
1 part syrup to 6 parts sparkling water over ice, with grapefruit or lemon
Rosemary needs a citrus partner or the glass reads like a candle. Grapefruit is the best of them and it is not close.
The shrub version
1 cup crushed blackberries with 1 cup sugar and 2 rosemary sprigs, 24 hours cold, strained, then 3/4 cup red wine vinegar. Rest 1 week.
What doesn't work: Leaving the sprigs in the syrup jar in the fridge so it keeps developing, which people do because it looks good through the glass and because it tasted right on day one. By day three it tastes like turpentine and there is no way back. Camphor and pinene keep extracting into cold sugar syrup indefinitely, so strain it and store the syrup clean.
Goes with: GrapefruitBlood orangeLemonBlackberryPear