More Science
Back in May (before the earth went hurtling into the sun and it scorched us all with its searing blinding death rays), I told you guys about my sage plants and the delicious syrup we made from their flowers. In the meantime, we’ve made another batch or two of syrup and had many a happy glass of lemonade. Then somewhere along the way, the world exploded in a ball of scorching fire, we were stunned into neglect by the desperate heat, and our sage plants got a bit…um…tired. So for the moment, there are no more sage flowers.
However, if you look one garden bed over, there are (despite our criminal lack of garden care) rather a lot of lavender blossoms. I made the executive decision that we could try the experiment with lavender instead of sage (supplemented with some lavender from the spice drawer so I didn’t have to steal too much from the plant). That pink stuff at the front is bee balm…I have plans for experimenting with that too, but it’s new this year so I want to let it get a bit more established before I go pillaging from it.
I followed the same procedure as before. Make a very thick simple syrup (I used about 3 cups of sugar to 2 cups of water). Bring it to a boil. Toss in the plants. Let the heat go for about 30 seconds. Turn the heat off and let it steep for an hour or two. Strain.
I was absolutely delighted to find that the syrup was a lovely deep purple. Like grape soda purple. I was expecting brown or maybe golden. Maybe even green. But no…seriously perfectly purple. I, alas, did not manage to get a picture (we had people coming over, it was a busy afternoon).
But of course, given what happened last time (golden sage syrup + golden lemon juice = pink final product), I was just itching to see what would happen when I added the lemon/lime juice. I was not disappointed. Once again, pink.
There’s obviously something cool going on here. Anybody out there a chemist? I really want to know why lemon/lime juice seems to turn flower syrups pink. Somebody has to know. Come over and we can discuss it over very tasty lemonade.
That is so cool! I wish I knew why it happens. I have to wonder if you could dye yarn with it. Obviously you’d have to make a few adjustments to your recipe, since you don’t really want your yarn coated in sugar, but if you could get the pink or purple color into your yarn it would be super cool!!
The dye which causes the lavender syrup to be purple is a pH indicator (many dyes are) – when you protonate it a low (acidic) pH it turns pink and when it is above its pKa (neutral or basic conditions) it is blue/violet. The pink – blue/violet transition is pretty common – purple cabbage works the same way. You can run the experiment by chopping up a head of purple cabbage and boiling half in a pot of water with a 1/4 cup baking soda and the other half in a pot of water with 1/4 cup of vinegar. If you take a tablespoon of your syrup and add a few drops of lemon juice I bet it will turn color (pink) and then if you add a few drop of a baking soda/water solution you should be able to get it to go back to blue/purple. Depending on the concentration of the baking soda/water it may take more or less than the lemon juice for the color to transition. Chemistry and color – doesn’t get much better than that! -Kimber
Oh how cool! I totally should have known you’d have the answer. You’ve totally got the background for it! I’m going to have to play with the cabbage thing. I wonder if beets would behave in a similar way? Why didn’t they start chemistry classes like this?
Now I’m intrigued…2 questions…how many flowers do you put in? What do you do with the syrup?
About 1/3 cup of flowers. We mix it into drinks. Makes the best lemonade ever. About 2 oz syrup to 8 oz seltzer water.
Sounds yummy…think I will try it.