A simple, potent Thyme & Rosemary Cough Syrup Recipe

Your spice cabinet is a well-known and potent medicine chest among herbalists. Keeping it well stocked and fresh will support food preparations but also medicine making that you may need at unexpected times.

No one wants to drive to a store to get needed remedies when we’re feeling sick. 

Let’s take a look at the medicinal qualities of some of our ingredients often found in your kitchen and why this delicious and potent cough syrup is a quick and easy to make remedy even when you’re not feeling well. 
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THE RECIPE FIRST: Jen's Simple Thyme & Rosemary Cough Syrup 

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 TB dried Rosemary (or 2 TB fresh chopped) 
• 1 TB dried Thyme (or 2 TB fresh chopped)
  
• Optional: 1 teaspoon dried Elecampane root (boosts the lung clearing even more) 
• 1 Lemon - zested peel
• 1 Lemon juiced
• 1 inch Ginger root - grated or sliced thin
• 1 cup boiled water
•  ½ cup Honey or agave 

INSTRUCTIONS: 

1. Add thyme, rosemary, elecampane root if using, ginger root and lemon zest to an 8oz heat safe mason jar and fill with boiling water, cap, wrap in a dish towel to keep the heat in, and allow to steep until warm to the touch. Maybe 2-3 hours. 
2. Strain your strong tea into large measuring cup, add lemon juice and honey or agave. Stir well and taste it. Adjust sweetness to your liking but keeping it not too sweet is better. 
3. Pour into a jar for storing in the refrigerator and label with ingredients and date. 
4. Dosing: 1-2 tablespoons every 4 hours while awake with active cold/flu symptoms. Continue for up to 10 days if needed. 

Easy kitchen medicine is at your fingertips. Ancient ways of healing have profound effects on our health and provide us with ways to stay home and practice the fine art of convalescence, meaning stay in bed with intermittent activity to exercise deep breathing. May you and your family thrive as we all learn to walk with the plants and the microbial world in this world we share. It’s all about boundaries.

Most herbal syrup recipes include a slow long simmer to reduce the amount of water and extract the medicine. Here with aromatic plants like Rosemary and Thyme, we loose much of the aromatics which are part of the medicine with a slow simmer process. Your house will smell great and you will inhale some of this which is great, but it will not be in your syrup which is what I want. So I simply reduced the water amount, traded the simmer for a slow infusion, and leaned on a capped jar method with extra time to keep all of the medicine in the syrup.

Many blessings to you. Send along any questions. 💚

Much Love, Jen

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Let's review some of our ingredients.

Why Rosemary?
Being incredibly antimicrobial is why I add it here. It also supports digestion and gut health and circulation which is more stagnant during convalescence when sick. It has nti inflammatory and antispasmodic properties and so eases pain and reduces swollen mucus linings of the airway to free up deep breathing.  

Rosemary is considered safe for most people in culinary amounts and has few side effects to consider should you take it in therapeutic medicinal amounts. Some people who should avoid it in medicinal amounts:

• Pregnant women should not use rosemary in large amounts (cooking is fine) and should avoid the essential oils.
• Breastfeeding women should also avoid large amounts of rosemary as there’s not enough known about how it affects this population and their babies.
• Those with an aspirin allergy should not take medicinal amounts of rosemary.
• Those with seizure or bleeding disorders should also avoid large amounts of rosemary.
• Rosemary can raise blood pressure in some at medicinal doses, so it may not be safe for those with elevated blood pressure.

If you’re unsure, check with your herbalist to see if rosemary is safe for you. Rosemary is best taken for a few weeks at medicinal doses and then reduced to being in formula with other herbs for extended dosing.

Culinary use in food preparations is considred generally safe for most people. 

Why Thyme?
Thyme is rich in plant phenols such as thymol and carvacrol which are powerfully anti-spasmodic, making them potent cough suppressants. The antibacterial and expectorant qualities of this herb thin the mucus that the cough is trying to expel, whilst gently healing and soothing the bronchial tract. As a result of the overwhelming research, Thyme oil is approved by Germany's "Commission E" in the treatment of bronchitis, whooping cough, and upper respiratory inflammation.

Thyme is an effective remedy for sore throats, improved digestion, eases all inflammation, expectorates and supports thinning mucus for productive coughs, and lifts the mood. Thyme essential oil is one of nature’s most powerful antimicrobials, with its calvacrol content being the main weapon against many of the different bacteria that can cause infection. The essential oil easily moves to your syrup due the heat, and then capping your jar quickly keeps these vital volatile oils in your final syrup. 


Why Lemon and Ginger root?
Immune and gut support are so needed when we’re sick. The gut shuts down during severe colds and flus in order to give vital energy to your immune system. Staying in bed is our first course of action so your immune system can have more energy. A little support to both systems helps them communicate well. Both lemon and ginger root help to thin secretions so mucus can move. We want thin running, flowing secretions which wash the microbes out of the body. 

Please throw out any OTC decongestants you might have thought would help as these quickly thicken secretions by removing extra water in your body and this dehydration causes a perfect environment for microbes to thrive and cause secondary infections, such as sinus or lung infections. 

Why Honey?
Honey adds more medicinal qualities to your syrup than other sweeteners. If vegan, then I understand and so you can use maple syrup, rice syrup, or agave here but honey is different from a medicine standpoint offering antimicrobial and preservative properties to your syrup. 

You can omit all sweetening and you will have a strong infusion for dosing. Allow to steep overnight for at least 8 hours and we can technically call it a steeped herbal decoction. The caveat if doing this is you have a shorter shelf life to about 5-7 days refrigerated. Dose the same every 4 hours. Remake as needed if things are lingering longer than this.

Optional Elecampane root?
This is pungent lung and gut supportive herb that is safe for longer use as well and has expectorating plus toning properties for lung tissue and tonifying qualities for the gut as well. 

​​Thank you, Jen