A delightful syrup that will brighten up your daily water intake. You can also add this syrup to cocktails for a fresh twist, mix it with sparkling water and serve as lemonade to kids, add a bit of lime juice to the lemonade and you have an delightful alcohol-free aperitif for adults.

Mint tea from freshly picked leaves is my madeleine de Proust. The smell and taste that brings back an entire army of nostalgic souvenirs. We always had a cup of mint tea after dinner at my grandparents place where we spent most of our summer with all our cousins. Every evening somebody ran behind the house to go pick some mint and the whole house smelled heavenly after dinner.

When I started arranging my own herb patch, mint was definitely going to be part of it. What I had conveniently forgotten is that mint is the sturdiest of weed! If it takes root, it will grow into a forest in no time! Well, I have my mint forest now and must go cut off huge branches every now and then to keep it from completely overwhelming other plants.

I have already dried up quite a big batch for winter and we are eating Herby Lebanese Taboulet every now and then. When I asked help with inspiration, a few friends suggested I make syrup from it. How come I didn’t think of it myself?!

I made syrup and it is wonderful. I can use up big batches of mint at a time and no horizontal space is occupied for days (as opposed to when drying it). The syrup lasts well in the refrigerator, you can keep it easily for about a month.

Homemade mint syrup recipe

Ingredients

• A few branches of mint (about 6-7 smaller ones or if you have a forest-style plant like me 1-2 will suffice 😄)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water

Instructions

Make a simple syrup by heating sugar and water until the sugar is completely dissolved. Do not boil the water, it would evaporate and change the ratio of water to sugar.

Remove from heat and add the mint leaves. Let infuse for 30 minutes.

Variant: If you wish, you can heat up the syrup while the leaves are infusing and let it simmer very slightly for about two minutes. this will change the taste of the syrup towards a sweeter more herbal tea style drink.

Remove the leaves and pour into a glass bottle. If you used dried mint there might be some small bits of leaves floating in the syrup. In this case you can drain through a fine-mesh sieve or a straining cloth before bottling it.

To make a wonderful refreshing drink, mix 1 part syrup with 5-7 parts water, depending on how much of a sweet tooth you are😁

You can store the syrup in the refrigerator for about 1 month.

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