Rose water

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This article is about the distillate obtained from rose petals. For the suburb of Adelaide in Australia, see Rosewater, South Australia.

Rose water or rose syrup (Persian: گلاب Golâb, Turkish: Gül suyu, Arabic: ماء ورد‎ Māʾ ward, Urdu: گلاب رس ) is the hydrosol portion of the distillate of rose petals. Rose water, itself a by-product of the production of rose oil for use in perfume, is used to flavour food, as a component in some cosmetic and medical preparations, and for religious purposes throughout Europe and Asia.

Rose perfumes are made from rose oil, also called attar of roses, which is a mixture of volatile essential oils obtained by steam-distilling the crushed petals of roses, a process first developed in Persia and Bulgaria. Rose water is a by-product of this process.

Rose water has a very distinctive flavour and is used heavily in South Asian, West Asian and Middle Eastern cuisine—especially in sweets. For example, rose water gives loukoumia (turkish delight) and gulab jamuns their distinctive flavours. In Iran it is also added to tea, ice cream, cookies and other sweets in small quantities, and in the Arab world and India it is used to flavour milk and dairy-based dishes such as rice pudding. It is also a key ingredient in sweet lassi, a drink made from yogurt, sugar and various fruit juices, and is also used to make jallab. In Malaysia and Singapore, rose water is mixed with milk, sugar and pink food colouring to make a sweet drink called bandung. In Western Europe, rose water is sometimes used to flavour both marzipan and a shell-shaped French cake, sometimes called a cookie, known as a madeleine.

A rose water ointment is occasionally used as an emollient, and rose water is sometimes used in cosmetics such as cold creams. Zamzam water, used to clean the Kaaba, a holy shrine of Islam located in Mecca, includes rose water as a component. Rose water is used in some Hindu rituals as well.

Rose water was first produced by Muslim chemists in the medieval Islamic world through the distillation of roses, for use in the drinking and perfumery industries.^[1]