How to Make Medicinal Syrup

By Rosemary Gladstar
Published on May 16, 2013
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Children and the elderly seem to prefer syrups, as both age groups are more inclined to down their medicine if it’s sweet.
Children and the elderly seem to prefer syrups, as both age groups are more inclined to down their medicine if it’s sweet.
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“Rosemary Gladstar’s Medicinal Herbs” provides a beginner’s guide to using herbs for common ailments.
“Rosemary Gladstar’s Medicinal Herbs” provides a beginner’s guide to using herbs for common ailments.

Make your own medicinal syrup from the herbs in your garden using author Rosemary Gladstar’s herbal syrup recipe.

Children and the elderly seem to prefer syrups, as both age groups are more inclined to down their medicine if it’s sweet. “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down” was a ditty most surely written about herbal syrups.

Syrups begin with a very concentrated decoction. Combine an herb or herb blend with water in a pot, using 2 ounces of herb per quart of water. Set the pot over low heat, bring to a simmer, cover partially, and simmer the liquid down to about half the original volume.

Strain the herbs from the liquid (compost the spent herbs). Measure the volume of the liquid, and then pour it back into the pot.

For each pint of liquid, add 1 cup of honey or other sweetener, such as maple syrup, vegetable glycerin, or brown sugar. Most recipes call for 2 cups of sweetener (a 1:1 ratio of sweetener to liquid), but I find that far too sweet for my taste. (Before refrigeration was common, the extra sugar helped preserve the syrup.)

Warm the mixture over low heat, stirring well. Most recipes call for cooking the sweetener and tea for 20 to 30 minutes over high heat to thicken the syrup. This certainly does make a thicker syrup, but I’d rather not cook the living enzymes out of the honey, so I warm the mixture only enough that the honey combines with the liquid (not over 110°F; lower is better).

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