Allergies, Colds and Flus, Oh My! Herbed Honey

It’s that time of year.  For all of us here in Thornesworld, the allergies kick in first.  As Autumn begins to dry plants to drop leaves for the winter to come, a lot of plants flower and make their last gasp to cast their seeds to the wind and with that come allergies.  The allergies cause that nasty post nasal drip that makes our throats scratchy & tender, even sore.

In short time, we’ll be having kids coming home from school with runny noses that will become chapped and sore from sniffling and blowing. We’ll pick up random viruses from shopping carts and chance encounters with random humans, and even if we get flu vaccinations (we don’t- but… lol) we’ll still be exposed to several of the many strains the vaccines don’t cover, so…

We gotta do our magickal and natural herbal best to care for and treat ourselves.  Am I right? So on the table today is a delicious sore throat and cough remedy.  Herbed Honey.

Use local, organic, raw honey if you can, but if you can’t source it, don’t let that stop you.  Honey is so good for a scratchy or sore throat.  It’s actually more soothing than most cough syrups and has the added benefit of being delicious, natural, and you can’t take too much.

Honey is antioxidant, antibacterial, antiseptic, and antifungal. Raw honey also has immune boosting and anti cancer properties.

I’m starting with well rinsed and dried garden sage and spearmint. Sage is wonderful for coughs and sore throats. With its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, it’s perfect for your throat (as well as your tummy- but we’ll talk about that another time). Spearmint contains less menthol than peppermint, but it is rich in limonene, dihydrocarvone, and cineol and has long been used for soothing a sore throat. It has a sweeter taste than peppermint, which is my primary reason for including it in this recipe. I just love spearmint!

I didn’t want to trim my herbs back too hard quite yet, we have another month of growing here before I have to worry about frost, so I’m starting this small batch now just to get ahead of cold & flu season.  This is an 8 ounce Ball canning jar, and once I’ve layered the herbs in (about 2-3 ounces of fresh herbs) and cover them with honey I end up with almost  4 ounces of herbed honey. I’m going to let this infuse for a week or so before I add some lavender essential oil. Lavender is also antiseptic and anti-inflammatory and tastes just wonderful.  Always use food or therapeutic grade essential oils. I’m going to add 2-3 drops per ounce of honey.  stir well and taste.

Some folk like to strain the honey after the herbs have steeped a week or 2, but I leave them in.  They’ll continue to imbue the honey with their healing and flavorful goodness, and pouring almost boiling water over a scoop of leaves with honey makes a deliciously soothing cup of tea. The herbed honey will stay fresh almost indefinitely in the fridge, but around here we use it much too fast to bother with refrigeration.

I hope you’ll try this delicious throat remedy, and don’t forget to pop over to my shop and stock up on Auntie Thorne’s Winter Rub for that stuffy nose and congestion.

Blessed be,

93

In Light and Shadow,

~Thorne  

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