A ratafia draws flavour into alcohol, from bark, blossom, or fruit.
The English word dandelion is thought to come from the French dent de lion, which is odd, as they call it pissenlit, the bedwetter.
Here is an outline of the process, no quantities. It all depends on the number of heads you collect.
First gather as many flowers as you can. Just the heads. You will deal with the unwanted green bit later. The stems are useless for this purpose.
Separate the yellow from the green and the white connective tufty pith. This is tedious. If you go to my Substack page linked below, there is a longer piece about this. Next year I will be more meticulous. I really want a bright yellow end product and certainly use scissors.
Put the yellow into a glass jar with a tight-fitting lid. Pour in enough vodka to cover them. There is little point in letting the alcohol evaporate. No fancy stuff is needed here. I had two bottles of vodka on hand, just in case. Any left over will be used when the elderflowers arrive.
Return it to the jar and seal. Leave for another day. Taste. You may want to slip in some lemon zest, no white pith, for a few hours, taking it out when you are happy.
Now make a light syrup with your whitest sugar. Add, taste, repeat until you are very happy.
Bottle.
It is ready now. I am going to serve it on the rocks, topped off with a sparkling dry cider, Aspall in all likelihood.
Experiment away. Let me know if you come up with any remarkable concoctions.