A typically Serbian products, the elderberry juice, or actually a thick syrup to be diluted with water, a homemade juice, today is almost completely replaced with the industrial soda drinks and juices.
The black elderberry is a growing wild plant, a bush or amll tree, up to five metres tall. The tree of the bush has greyish-brown bark with lengthwise furrowing. The newly sprouting branches are green with white lines and with white core inside. The core is easily taken out, so once flutes used to made of it. The flowers are tyny, milky white and of s trong and pleasant scent. They taste bitter but aromatic. They also contain essential oil consisting of about 40 substances. The fruit is a dark purple to black berry containg purple juice. Usually only the flower is used. The black elderberry blooms from May to July. In that period one should pick as much floers as possible and then – quite simply – with water, sugar and lemon – the elderberry juice (syrup) is made. Besides having a special aroma, the elderberry syrup is beneficial for coughs and the respiratory system in general.