SYRUPS & OXYMELS
I chose to put syrups and oxymels together for a specific reason. Most people have never heard of the word oxymel, but it's been around for quite a while...like sense Hippocrates time! Today, we as a society seem to have done away with the 'nonsense' of proper terms and skip right to the term 'medicine' as the universal for most cures/solutions. Seriously, how many times have you said, "do you have any cough medicine?" or "did you take medicine?" When's the last time you asked someone, "have you taken cough syrup?" or better yet, "the oxymel is in the fridge". Not a very common word is it?
Well, if you've heard of and tried the herbal remedy known as Fire Cider, than you my friend, have just heard of or taken an oxymel. But how is a syrup an oxymel? It's not. I put the two together here because both a syrup and an oxymel use nature's golden medicine...honey.
I'm sure you already know the absolutely wonderful health benefits of honey so I won't dive into that. I will however, remind you of two things. One, use RAW organic honey. We don't want pasteurized honey; we want the beneficial properties to remain. And two, no honey to children under a year old. Always check with your child's pediatrician to get the okay for honey.
You may already know how to make a simple syrup...water and sugar brought to a boil, simmer a hot second then store. An herbal syrup is similar to that just with the addition of herbs and berries. Syrups are perfect when you are dealing with kids because it's nice and sweet. The concentration packs a punch with all the health benefits and a little bit goes a long way when using as a remedy. Elderberry syrup is a popular syrup I'm sure you've heard about and the best part about it is kids can take it daily as a prophylactic like a vitamin. But what if you or they can't have honey? Vegetable glycerin is the substitute for this. You can even mix honey and vegetable glycerin if you'd like.
The key to making syrups is adding the berries or CRUSHED/BRUISED herbs to water in a pot, slow rolling boil and reducing the liquid to almost 1/2 its starting amount. Strain the syrup and allow to cool to a luke warm temperature then add honey. You don't want to heat the honey and 'cook' it, removing the beneficial properties, you just want to warm the honey to make it easy to stir and dissolve in the syrup.
Oxymels are similar in that you are using apple cider vinegar and honey. You can follow the same technique above by substituting vinegar for water or in the case of Fire Cider, all ingredients goes into a large jar (except honey) and left to ferment. After ingredients are strained then the honey is added. You can even add tinctures to your oxymel.
You can find the recipes to both my Elderberry Syrup and Fire Cider plus more HERE.
