Yesterday I made four batches of cough relief syrup. It isn’t something that really stops the cough but it can help. It mostly makes my throat feel better. Any time I have a cold with a cough, the cough just lingers and lingers and this really helps. I’m not much of a drinker so just a little of this stuff will help me sleep when I have a cold, am stuffy and feeling bad.
My preference for the candy to put in it is red hots but I couldn’t find any of those in the stores. Vince likes the Bob’s peppermint in his.
I ended up making a batch flavored with each of the following: Bob’s peppermint, horehound candy, cherry candy and cinnamon candy. I first break up the candy I’m going to use so it will melt easier.
Then I pour about 1-1/2 cups of bourbon in a pot, heat it up just a bit and stir til the candy melts, then measure what’s in the pot (the alcohol cooks off quickly). I can either add more alcohol to get it up to 1-1/2 cups or just pour in however much honey I need to equal what’s left in the pot. This time I added more alcohol to get it back up to 1-1/2 cups. The extra alcohol helps cool the liquor down. Once it’s a little warmer than room temp, I pour in the same amount of honey (1-1/2 cups in this case). I whisk it til the honey is melted. Then I add the juice of one lemon, about 2 teaspooons of cinnamon and 1 teaspoon of chopped ginger. That’s it. I pour it into jars, let it sit for about a week. At that point, I strain out the ginger and keep this mix in the fridge.
I ended up with two pints of each flavor. Let’s hope we don’t need any of it and we’ll have it all for next year. I’ll give Chad a jar or two of it but, based on how much we’ve used in the past, this is enough for more than a few years. I don’t think I needed any of it last year but I hadn’t made it since we were in Texas so I figured it was time to make more.
Angie says
My dad used to make cough syrup when I was a little. I would get croup bad and that seemed to help, but of course it made me throw up. I think that a way for my body to get rid of the gunk in my system. As an adult I would make it with whiskey, rock candy and lemon and sometimes add honey. I would use more honey if I didn’t have rock candy. My sons discovered that it helped when they had colds and would ask me to make some. Usually a pint would last all winter for us. Now that they are grown with children of their own, they make it for themselves. Maybe I need to make a batch to have on hand, just in case.
Nancy Bishop says
I was raised by my grandmother. She was born in 1897, the second of 12 children of Iowa farmers. Whenever I got a cold or worse, out came the cough “remedy”. One part honey, one part fresh lemon juice and one finely sliced onion! When I married and had my I own family, I asked Grandma about the remedy and the purpose of each ingredient. Lemon juice to cut the phlegm, honey to sooth the throat and onion to make your breath smell so no one would come close and catch your cold!!! I sure miss Grandma!!
judy.blog@gmail.com says
That’s funny! I bet it all worked too.