It's been a long time dream of mine - to grow enough roses - the fragrant, damask roses for distillation. The idea was/is to schedule mini-retreat soul renovating experiences - where retreat guests would gather baskets of roses from the gardens, bring them to the distillation center (what we call the Sanctuary) - and then together - experience the beautiful process of distillation.
My plan of a light lunch of garden salad, farm baked sourdough and mint tea would be served didn't quite get pulled off - the roses bloomed almost overnight and didn't allow time for a formal invitation to this gathering.
*
*
Up until a few weeks ago, I was still staring at and overwhelmed by this huge 20L alembic copper still (used for these sacred distillations), and then a skilled distiller offered to assit us in this dream project.
*
The sacred drips of perfectly distilled Rose Hydrosol begins. 🌹
*
So we set a morning - on a recent Friday - I connected with friends of the farm who love roses and were more than thrilled to arrive at the farm at 6 am to this epic experience - the farm's first rose distillation.
The Thursday evening before, I talked to God and asked if he'd cover the farm with a blessing for this special experience. Well, my heart just about exploded Friday morning. It was if Creator God blew love on each rose bush and the buds all opened perfectly. So perfectly. I'd never seen such rose volume before.
The ladies arrived, connected with each other, a few bottle fed the baby goats )(who have now gone to their new homes), grabbed coffee, baskets and in teams of two - took off to the gardens and began to put their faces into the roses selecting all the fragrant ones. There was more than we had anticipated. The 20L still needed to be filled and it was.
In the future, I'd love to distill our Immortelle, Yarrow, Lavender, and Roses.
