Herbal syrups are a time-honored way to administer not-so-pleasant-tasting herbs to the young ones and picky eaters in your life. Tasty on their own by the spoonful, they also add an herbal boost to your favorite culinary recipes and libations. Try them in teas, desserts, bubbly beverages, cocktails, DIY root beers, or atop ice cream.
Homemade syrups can be prepared with sugar or honey. If prepared with honey, my preferred method, the herbal syrup can coat any digestive tract membranes it comes into contact with. Who doesn’t love a good coating of honey on the throat when it’s cold outside? For proper preservation and a shelf stable syrup, use a ratio of 1:1 (tea to honey). However, you can also cut back to 2:1 or 3:1. If you use one of these lower sweetener to tea ratios, you will need to refrigerate your syrup and use it quickly. You can also add some tincture to help preserve your syrup.
The best thing about these sweet remedies is that like tea or tinctures, you can formulate with any combination of herbs. While elderberry syrup is our most popular, I also love to have use these herbs (organic, of course) in my single-ingredient or combination syrups: ginger, thyme, elecampane, chamomile, peppermint, marshmallow root, schisandra berry, echinacea root, elder flower, hawthorn berry, holy basil, and hop flower.
This syrup is scrumptious drizzled atop dessert, stirred into tea or hot toddies, or taken by the spoonful throughout the day.
Ingredients
Directions
Pro tip: if you want to hot pack your syrups, make sure not to put the lid on top until the contents is completely cool. Condensation could create water in the mixture, which might encourage premature bacterial growth.
You may also enjoy: