Recipe for Horehound Herbal Cough Syrup

[Delissa]

Considering that it is snowing right now at my place and the baby's nose is starting to run, I thought for the first recipe I would talk about making your own herbal cough syrup. My favorite herb to use for cough syrup is Horehound, but there are many other herbs you could use in it's stead in this recipe such as Chamomile, Colt's Foot or Black Cherry Bark.



Horehound is a fairy common and exceedingly easy herb to grow (watch your borders or the stuff will take over your garden!). It's scientific name is Marrubium vulgare and it is part of the mint family. It's a soft and fuzzy leafed plant with very pretty purple or white flowers in the summer. You can use both the dried leaves and the flowers in your medicines. Horehound is an expectorant and works wonderfully when you find yourself with a non-productive cough. It acts by soothing bronchial tubes while promoting the production of mucus which leads to a more productive cough.


Horehound Cough Syrup

Ingredients:

2 ounces Honey (local is best- added bonus of helping with allergies)
1.5 ounces of Horehound
boiling water

1. You will need a quart(ish) sized jar with a tight fitting lid. I like to use a sterilized and re-purposed spaghetti sauce jar. Put all the horehound into the jar and add the boiling water and let it infuse for 6-8 hours.

2. Use a small strainer to separate the liquid from the herb. Make sure to press the herb well into the strainer to get out all the potent liquid.

3. Add the liquid to a sauce pan and heat to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer until the infusion is reduced to about half of the liquid you started with.

4. Add your honey and bring to a boil again, but don't let it boil long.

5. Pour you concoction into another (smaller) sterilized jar with a good sealing lid. I find larger baby food jars or ball canning jars work great.

You will want to store it in a cool dry place and it is ready for use as soon as it cools. Adults should take two teaspoons full and children one teaspoon full.

[Rasha]

haha the name makes me laugh. Im so childish... Very awesome though!

[KarrenOliver]

Delissa, I have a two-part question. Can we find this dried in an herbal store and if not, can we substitue with dried varietys of the herbs you mentioned? Not the greatest time of year to start growing things.....just hope the dried varietys will work.

[Delissa]

KT, if it's a well stocked herbal store you will likely find dried horehound, it's pretty common. And yes, you could substitute the others just as easily- chamomile being the easiest to find. You can also purchase them dried on the internet. I have purchased from ebay several times when I lived in DC and had no yard or garden.

[KellyMarie]

Wow Delissa, I didn't know it was so easy to make something like this! I just looked and Amazon sells dried herbs too!

[KarrenOliver]

Hrmph......who knew???