I use a number of herbal preparations in our home - from tisanes to tinctures, steaming vapors to syrups, and gentle creams and ointments. This year, in addition to my ever-ready elderberry tincture, I experimented with soothing syrups.
Elderberry-Rosehip Syrup
1/2 cup each dried elderberries and dried rose-hips
A few dried cloves
1 cinnamon stick
1 Tbs freshly grated ginger
2-3 cups filtered water
Raw honey
Gently simmer all the ingredients EXCEPT the honey, for about 1 hour. The mixture will become rather thick and a bit gooey (the rose-hips in particular thicken this). Carefully strain the juice into a small bowl or 1 pint mason jar. Straining can take awhile, as this is thick stuff - so be patient and let every bit of goodness drip out! You can gently press on this to hurry it a little bit. Measure how much syrup you have, and mix well with an equal measure of raw honey. Cover, and store in the refrigerator up to 2 months.
While many use this as a preventative (all that Vit C from the hips), I tend to use it once I am actually feeling ill. It is VERY sweet, and soothing to a sore throat. The antiviral and adaptogenic properties of the elderberries have been proven to shorten the duration of the flu (esp with H1N1) even better than Tamiflu! And a recent (2009) study showed that honey was just as effective as most commercial cough preparations. The ginger provides gentle heat to clear stuffy breathing passages, and I found it very relieving.
I found that this syrup helped to gently loosen phlegm, bolstered my shaky immune system (allergies and bronchitis are NOT the sign of a strong immune system, after all), soothed a throat sore from coughing, and generally made me feel better. I used this to sweeten lemonade made with organic lemon juice and filtered water, plain out of a spoon, and stirred into hot tea.
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