Rose Water and Orange Flower Water Guide: How to Use Them

October 12, 2026

Rose water and orange flower water are flower distillates: clear liquids, collected from a still in which petals or blossoms were heated, that carry the smell of the flower. They are used by the drop. One to three dashes perfume a cocktail, two teaspoons scent a batch of marzipan, and either one goes in late, after the heat is off. The working rule is to measure, stir and taste, because a careless pour turns a dessert into perfume.

A few terms first. A flower water is water that carries the scent and flavor of a flower; Fee Brothers sells its orange flower water under the shorter name orange water. Distillation is the process of heating a liquid until it turns to vapor, then cooling the vapor so it turns back into liquid, which separates what boils off from what stays behind. A still is the equipment that does it, and a distillate is the liquid collected from it. An essential oil is the concentrated, oily aroma of a plant. An extract, as the FDA defines vanilla extract, is a flavor dissolved in a mix of water and alcohol.

1. Petals, steam and a still

Both waters are distillates. Rose water is a distillate made chiefly from the damask rose, according to the Encyclopaedia Iranica entry on rose water by Houshang Alam, and Fee Brothers says its orange water is distilled from orange blossoms. With plants, the still usually works with steam. In steam distillation, steam or water goes into the flask along with the material being distilled, according to the organic chemistry lab text by Lisa Nichols of Butte College. Nichols calls the extraction of natural products from plant materials its most common use, and the main industrial method for obtaining plant essential oils. Her pictured example is mint leaves in the flask.

Steam works on petals because water and the oily scent compounds in a plant do not dissolve in one another, so each turns to vapor on its own terms, as Nichols explains. Mohammad Hossein Boskabady and colleagues, in a 2011 review of the damask rose (Rosa damascena) in the Iranian Journal of Basic Medical Sciences, describe rose oil as a volatile oil (one that turns to vapor easily) obtained by distilling the fresh flowers, prepared in copper stills called alembics by individual peasant distillers or in large factories under careful scientific control. Their figure for the yield is stark: some 3,000 parts of flowers give only one part of oil. Rose water is the plentiful product. The Iranica entry describes rose oil, or attar, as an essential oil obtained from rose water, made in much smaller quantities and sold at a much higher price.

Orange flower water comes from the blossoms of the orange tree. Fee Brothers, the Rochester, New York company whose botanical line includes both waters, says its orange water adds a hint of flavor and an intense aroma (shop Fee Brothers Orange Flower Water). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's list of essential oils and natural extractives, including distillates, that are generally recognized as safe for their intended use names the flowers of both the bitter orange (Citrus aurantium) and the sweet orange. The same list names rose flowers and buds from four rose species, damask rose among them.

2. Where rose water comes from

The damask rose originated in the Middle East, and some evidence points to Iran as the origin of rose water itself, according to the Boskabady review. The same review reports that the highest quality rose water is produced in Kashan, and that rose water is valued in the food industry, where special foods are prepared with it. The Iranica entry names the town of Qamsar, in Kashan, for the best rose water, and lists sherbets (chilled sweet drinks) and sweetmeats (candies and other sweet confections) among its uses.

The language of the bar keeps a trace of that history. The word julep, now best known from the mint julep, came into English in the late fourteenth century for a syrupy drink in which medicine was given, and it traces back to the Persian gulab, a sweet drink and also rose water, from gul, rose, and ab, water, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary. The minted drink took the name only in the eighteenth century; long before that, its Persian root named rose water.

3. Flower water, extract, essential oil, syrup

Four kinds of bottle can put a flower into food, and they are not interchangeable. The difference is what carries the aroma, and how concentrated it is.

An extract is built on alcohol. The FDA's legal definition of vanilla extract, the best-known extract in American baking, is a solution in water and ethyl alcohol of the flavor and aroma compounds drawn from vanilla beans, with alcohol of not less than 35 percent by volume. How those beans get their flavor in the first place is in the guide to curing vanilla. A flower water is built on water instead, with the aroma it picked up in the still.

An essential oil sits at the other extreme: the concentrated oil from the still, 3,000 parts of rose flowers for one part of rose oil in the Boskabady figure. A flower water and an essential oil from the same flowers are measured on completely different scales, and a recipe written for one is not a recipe for the other.

A flower syrup is sweetener first. Bacanha, founded in 2013, makes its syrups in a workshop in the Paris region of France, according to the company. Its rose syrup lists organic cane sugar, water, natural rose flavoring and citric acid, with 76.5 grams of sugar in every 100 milliliters, according to the maker's product page (shop Bacanha Rose Syrup). A syrup sweetens and flavors at once; a flower water is measured in drops, for its scent.

Form	What carries the flavor	Dose the maker or recipe gives	Best first uses
Flower water (rose or orange flower)	Water, distilled with the flowers	1 to 3 dashes (0.3 mL) per drink, Fee Brothers	Cocktails, marzipan, syrups, custards, poached fruit
Extract (vanilla as the model)	Water and at least 35 percent alcohol, by FDA definition	Set by each recipe	Cakes, cookies, custards
Essential oil (rose oil)	The plant's own oil, about 1 part from 3,000 parts flowers	Not a substitute for a flower water	Measured on a different scale; not a kitchen swap
Flower syrup (Bacanha Rose)	Sugar syrup, 76.5 g sugar per 100 ml	About 20 ml per drink (a 400 ml bottle is a concentrate of 20 drinks, per Bacanha)	Sodas, lemonades, coffee, cocktails

4. How strong they are

The makers' own numbers answer the question. Fee Brothers gives the same dose on both its rose water and orange flower water pages: one to three dashes, which it puts at 0.3 milliliters, in a drink. A dash is the small splash that comes out of a bottle with a narrow pouring cap when it is flicked once. At 0.3 milliliters a drink, a 5 fluid ounce bottle, about 148 milliliters, holds roughly 490 doses. Fee Brothers describes its botanical waters as infused with plant extract, offering subtle, natural flavors, and its rose water as a way to build depth of flavor and bouquet in a cocktail (shop Fee Brothers Rose Water).

The working rule follows from those numbers. Measure with a dash, a quarter teaspoon or a half teaspoon, never a free pour. Add it, stir, and taste before adding more. A flower water that reads as a pleasant floral note at the right amount reads as perfume at twice that amount, and there is no taking it back out.

Heat matters too. The aroma in a flower water is made of compounds that rose as vapor in the still, so a long boil can carry some of it off again. That is why these recipes add it late. For pâte de fruit, a firm French fruit jelly candy, the raspberry pâte de fruit recipe stirs half a teaspoon of rose water in off the heat, and the Malatya stuffed apricots recipe stirs a teaspoon into the syrup after the pan comes off the burner.

5. Where they belong

Marzipan and almond sweets. Almonds and flower water are an old pairing. Lübeca, the marzipan maker in Stockelsdorf, next to Lübeck in Germany, quotes the novelist Thomas Mann, in a 1926 essay on Lübeck, describing marzipan as a mixture of almonds and rose water and sugar. The marzipan and almond paste recipe uses two teaspoons of rose water or orange flower water in a batch of about 450 grams, and for torrone, the Italian nougat of honey and nuts, the honey torrone recipe suggests folding a teaspoon of orange flower water in with the nuts.

Baking and puddings. In cakes, shortbread, rice puddings and custards, a flower water can replace part of the vanilla or sit beside it. Burlap & Barrel's damask rose petal powder, made from organically grown, hand-picked, slowly dried roses, offers a dry route to the same flavor: the product page suggests it for syrups, drinks, baked goods and puddings, and as a one-for-one swap for rose water (shop Burlap & Barrel Damask Rose Petals). The powder suits a dry mix, such as a shortbread dough or a sugar for dusting, where a liquid would change the texture.

The Ramos Gin Fizz. This cocktail shows how far a few drops of orange flower water go. The recipe published by the Sazerac House, at 101 Magazine Street in New Orleans, calls for 2 ounces of gin, an egg white, half an ounce each of lemon and lime juice, three quarters of an ounce each of simple syrup and heavy cream, 2 ounces of soda water and three dashes of orange flower water. That is three dashes against more than 6 ounces of other liquid, before the egg white, and the flower still comes through. The tools and glassware for shaking one are covered in the home bar guide.

Orgeat and other syrups. Orgeat, the almond syrup, is defined by Dictionary.com as a syrup or drink made originally from barley but later from almonds, prepared with sugar and an extract of orange flowers. A few dashes of orange flower water stirred into a homemade almond syrup restores that note, and the syrups and cordials guide covers the family in full. A plain rich syrup, made by the method in the rich simple syrup recipe, becomes a rose syrup with rose water stirred in once it has cooled. For a finished rose syrup, Bacanha suggests its own in cocktails and a few drops in an espresso or iced latte; the whole range is compared in the Bacanha syrup guide, and more bottles sit in the drink syrups collection.

Poached and dried fruit. Dried and poached fruit take a flower water best at the end, stirred into the warm syrup off the heat. A teaspoon of rose water is the amount the stuffed apricot recipe uses for about 24 apricots.

6. Measured in drops

The still does the hard work. Thousands of parts of flowers give one part of oil, and the same distilling gives far more fragrant water, which carries the flower in a form gentle enough to measure by the dash. Both Fee Brothers waters are grouped with the maker's bitters and syrups in the Fee Brothers collection.

The skill on the cook's side is restraint. The right amount of a flower water is the smallest amount that can be smelled, added late, after the heat is off.

The shop is at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and products ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com.