Herbal Honey!

Making herbal honey is a great way to incorporate herbs into your daily diet in a delicious way. 

Raw honey has antimicrobial properties and will preserve the herbs you infuse in it making a flavoursome elixir for use all year round. These honeys can be used medicinally as well as in culinary use.  Add these honeys to make fizzy waters, use in baking and in your salad dressing recipes.       

Best to use a raw local honey if you can, but if not use the honey that is available. 

DO NOT give honey to children under one year old.

Herbs to use to make these honeys:

Oregano – This herb contains strong antibacterial & antiviral oils. It has a specific tonic action on the lungs and break down mucous in phlegmy coughs. 

Rosemary - improves memory by increasing circulation to the head. Great for warming  your cold hands and feet.  

Lemon balm -The 'lemony smell of lemon balm makes the heart and mind merry' as the famous herbalist Nicholas Culpeper claimed.  It has a calming effect on the body and mind. TIP: only infuse Lemon balm   overnight: this traps the beautiful lemony taste without extracting the sour tannins. 

Fennel leaf or seed - Fennel seed is great for settling tummy pain and wind.  Use as a digestive for after dinner.

Garlic - yikes I know, but the honey makes the medicine go down a lot easier.  Place whole garlic cloves into your honey.  Amount of cloves depends on size of the container.  Provides a powerful antimicrobial punch!

Cinnamon and ginger – Warms and settles the belly.  Soothing for female complaints and will warm you up if you have a cold or flu.    

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How to Make:

• Fill a glass jar 1/3 to ½ way full with cut, dried herbs.
•  Cover completely with raw, local honey. Stir as best you can. Cap with an air-tight lid, and label the jar with the ingredients and the date.
•  Let this mixture steep together for 2-4 weeks. You may want to flip the jar upside down every so often so that the herbs move back and forth through the honey and does not stay clumped together in one spot.
• Taste the honey at intervals to see when it has reached its desired strength.
• To strain out the herb you may need to gently (very gently!) heat the honey in a warm water bath. The heat will loosen up the honey and allow the herbs to be strained out more easily. But you want to be sure not to heat it up too much or you will destroy much of the nutritional goodness in the raw honey. Strain the honey with a metal strainer do not use muslin.
• Once the herbs are strained out, place in a glass jar and store in a dark cupboard.
• Use this honey on its own as asyrup or mixed into a hot cup of tea for the ailment it is intended for.

Pro Tips

Using a chopstick, in the beginning, is helpful for pushing the honey to the bottom as it speeds up the process a bit.

You will need to keep checking the level of the honey over the next few days as gravity works its magic and the honey fills in all the nooks and crannies. Add more honey as needed.

Wendolyn Murdoch

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