Yo, Alex/mousethief - I live in Olympia WA, USA. If you're in the NW USA, there's two kinds of elderberries round here. The native elderberry (Red Elderberry) blossoms first and has (duh) red berries. It's the one that smells like cat piss. The dark elderberry (sambuca nigra), the one with the edible flowers, flowers later(as late as July) and has blue or black berries. They tend to grow in warmer parts of the region (e.g. East of the Cascade mountains) although I've seen them on the west side of the mountains. Since the champagne recipe works with the essence of the fruit, not the seeds, I wouldn't worry too much about toxicity. The batch of elderberry wine I made didn't harm me ;) . . .!