If you ever felt like impressing your friends and perhaps making them think you're some sort of wizard, you'll love this easy-to-make syrup. Dried butterfly pea flowers can be found in most tea shops (it's also known as "blue tea"). For this recipe we are using only the dried-out flowers but if you chose to have a flavoured syrup, go ahead and use a blended tea that contains the butterfly pea flower. Butterfly pea flowers don't add much flavour by themselves—they have a light earthy taste but nothing really astonishing. Its best qualities are in the colours it produces. It will start off blue; the exact hue depends on how long you decide to steep it. The longer it steeps, the darker it will become.

The true magic happens when you introduce something acidic to the mix, like lemon or lime juice for example. This turns the tea a beautiful Violet or indigo colour. Just like magic. We took this tea and made it into a syrup by adding equal parts sugar to the tea. This sweet syrup is great for making collins style cocktails or just a simple sweetened clear liquor highball. To really 'wow' your crowd, I recommend adding the citrus last so everyone can watch with amazement as the cocktail transforms right before their eyes.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup water
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tbsp dried butterfly pea flower

DIRECTIONS

1. Add water to a saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to a simmer.
2. Add sugar.
3. Stir until sugar is entirely dissolved.
4. Remove from heat and add 2 tablespoons of dried butterfly pea flower.
5. Let steep for 10 minutes.
6. Transfer to an airtight container (glass works best) and let cool.
7. Refrigerate.

Keeps for two to three weeks.