Lavender...it's not just a color for Advent

This season I have fallen in love again with lavender and have discovered many uses for it beyond sachets, floral bouquets and bathroom spray.  Recently, at the Boise Co-op, one of Treasure Valley's answers to Southern California's Boney's, Henry's or Jimbo's, I found a soda called Dry Soda in Lavender flavor.  It was rather expensive, at nearly $2 for a twelve-ounce bottle, and though it was delicious and only 70 calories, I won't buy it again.  I even looked online to see if I could purchase it at a more wallet friendly price to no avail.  Well, I've heard it said that necessity is the mother of invention...I say it's a limited grocery budget that spurs on ingenuity and resourcefulness.  After perusing Dry's website and finding out that they only use four natural ingredients in their soda, I thought, hmmm...I bet I could replicate it at home.

This set me on a course to figure out how to make lavender syrup.  The biggest problem was finding culinary lavender for sale.  Thanks to the internet, I found some (I'm sure I could have procured it back at the Co-op but it turns out I'm rather lazy when it comes to driving 12 miles out of my way). At any rate, after finding many lavender recipes online, I made my syrup:

Some sugar, water, dried lavender buds, three days worth of refrigeration, a little straining and voila!  This marvelous, aromatic syrup came into being.

As for my version of the soda, I mixed the juice of one small Meyer lemon (strained) with 1 1/2 tablespoons of the syrup and poured this into 10 ounces of cold carbonated water.

This concoction may not be exactly the same but it evokes the same delightfully delicious hint of warmer months.  In other words, I like it.  For approximately thirty-five cents, I've made for myself a worthy opponent to the Dry Lavender soda AND was much easier on my wallet.

For now.

Until spring comes and I have to buy all the plants I want to put in my garden so I can cook with them. Including lavender.  Lots and lots of lavender.