How to Make Homemade Florida Water

ear Miracles: Today a little kitchen magic DIY for your reading pleasures! Join me in my momma’s kitchen as we make Florida water and homemade rosewater.

Florida comes from the Spanish word meaning flower “flore” so florida water basically means flower water. (The correct way to say flower water en Espanol is actually agua de flores, of which a lovely reader reminded me). The company Lanman and Murray has been making a commercial version of Florida Water since the 19th century. There are hundreds of recipes for florida water and it is used in all kinds of spiritual activities-from cleansing, blessing, and protecting, to offerings for the ancestors, to healing and removing negativity.

I make my own Florida Water and each batch is slightly different because I use whatever aromatic flowers and herbs are available at the time. Florida water is quite commonly made with alcohol-which adds to its cooling effect.

Below are two recipes that Momma Hen and I recently worked with to create our Spring/Summer batches of Florida Water:

Momma Hen’s Rose-a-licious Florida Water:

• 3-4 bottles of a commercial Florida water of your choice
• 3 cups roses (we prefer strongly scented antique roses and have over 200 varieties to choose from in our gardens)
• 3 cups Jasmine flowers
• 3 cups aromatic greens like mint, lemon balm, lemon verbena, basil, Mexican mint marigold, thyme)
• 3 cinnamon sticks

You can use fresh flowers and plants for this recipe. Combine all ingredients together on the new moon and allow them to sit for a full lunation. Strain out plant material, add any essential oils you like,  then bottle, spritz, sprinkle, and go to town!

A recipe for Florida Water than involves cooking:

This is a recipe that I created and involved cooking the ingredients on low either at the stove or crockpot.

• 5 cups of Vodka
• 9 cinnamon sticks
• 18 all-spice berries
• one orange peel (preferably dried)
• 3 cups rose petals (fresh or dried)
• 3 cups Jasmine flowers (fresh to get the scent)
• three bay leaves
• 1/2 cup dried angelica root
• 1 cup aromatic green herbs

Add dried ingredients and cook for about 10 minutes on low. Be careful inhaling the fumes–at this point it will be very Vodka-y. Then add fresh flowers and greens. Cook for 30-45 minutes on low/med-low or even longer. Stir occasionally and then sniff test. You want the botanicals to start outweighing the vodka in your sniff test.

Take off stove, cool, and add any essential oils you like! Bottle, spritz, and sprinkle away!

Rosewater 

And while we were at it we decided to make homemade rosewater! Usually, rosewater is clear and is actually rose hydrosol (the fragrant water created during the process of extracting essential oils from plants and flowers), but there are old recipes for making rosewater using roses (of course) and alcohol (we worked with vodka).

The result is a beautiful dusky rose liquid that smells HEAVENLY. Rosewater is used in blessing work and in love drawing rites.

Sacred Waters and Washes have been used throughout time and are especially loved in climates where its hot for much of the year-nothing cools you down like a quick spray-but if the spray smells good and it’s magical even better! It is my hope that with a few recipes you can now experiment making your own flower waters.

For those of you who love kitchen magic–have you ever made flower waters before, and if so, how do you work with them?