DIY Halls for Sore Throat

If you’ve ever been interested in making homemade drops against sore throat and cough, today is your lucky day! The beauty of this recipe lies in its versatility, as you can easily customize it by experimenting with different flavors.

Making DIY drops at home isn’t very hard.  You have to be able to make an herbal tea and be brave enough to play with heated sugar or honey in this case.  During the process, we essentially merge the two elements together and use heat to remove any moisture that is present. While you have the freedom to flavor them according to your preference, it is important to note that certain herbs are more effective in treating coughs than others. So, let’s dive in.

Take These Herbs Against Sore Throat

I wanted to do a honey drops recipe because, for one, I wanted to make them without sugar.  But honey itself it’s also effective on its own. In this study, they gave children aged 1 to 5 who had upper respiratory infections up to 2 teaspoons of honey before bedtime. It seems like the honey helped with coughing at night and made them sleep better. Actually, in the study, they found that honey seemed to work just as well as a common cough suppressant called dextromethorphan, which you can easily find in over-the-counter medications.

Before an argument breaks out in the comment section, yes, cooking honey to this temperature destroys some of its medicinal qualities.  But if you want to make a hardened lozenge, you’ll need to cook either honey or sugar to a high temperature.  If you’re not a fan of using heated honey or sugar, maybe a syrup recipe would suit you better.

The herbs in this remedy were chosen for their flavor and medicinal qualities.  I didn’t want something super rich in menthol; instead, I wanted to create a balanced, semi-sweet herbal flavor. But you can go for more mint or even cinnamon.  Try using food-safe extracts and oils for a bolder flavor. The herbs used here can help with all sorts of symptoms and ailments that cause a sore throat, like colds, the flu, viruses, or allergies.

Here’s a list of the medicinal contributions of each herb:

Fenugreek: mucus, sore throat, sinusitis, lymph, Vitamin C.

Juniper Berry: antimicrobial, cough and cold, respiratory, natural preservative.

Licorice: cough, congestion, immune system, pain relieving, antiviral.

Thyme: throat, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, pain relieving, ease coughing.

Ginger: antiviral for cough, throat, and inflammation, clears airway and phlegm.

Oregano: antimicrobial, respiratory, anti-inflammatory.

Rosemary: eases symptoms of coughing and sore throat, antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory.

Peppermint: Breaks up mucus, soothes throat and cough, antibacterial, sinus congestion.

Lemon Peel: cough, cold, flu, fever, bronchial, Vitamin C. (Make sure it’s organic)

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You’ll need to find  cool, and dry spot to store your homemade sore throat drops. Moisture will ruin them.  I wrapped each one individually to help keep them dry and stored them in the fridge, which also helped keep them nice and hard.  I had some leftover candy wrappers from an old work project, but you can use parchment paper or whatever else you want. Also, be really careful with the “candy syrup.” Three hundred degrees is really hot!

DIY Halls for Sore Throat

Ingredients:

• 

  1 cup water

• 1 ½ cup Honey
• 1 tsp dried fenugreek
• 1 tsp juniper berry (crushed with mortar)
• 1 tsp licorice root
• ½ tsp dried thyme leaves
• 2 tsp grated ginger
• ½ tsp oregano leaves
• ½ tsp dried rosemary leaves
• 3 tsp dried peppermint leaves
• 2 tsp dried lemon peel

Tools:

• Tea kettle
• Tea ball or cloth to seep herbs in
• Saucepan
• Wooden spoon
• Parchment paper or non-stick mat
• Candy thermometer or bowl for ice water
• Storage container
• Paper wrapping
• Tapioca starch or arrowroot powder to keep drops from sticking together

Tip: If you don’t have a candy thermometer, you can use a bowl of ice water to determine when your mixture is ready.  Once the mixture turns into a hard ball upon being dropped into the water, it’s ready to be made into “drops.”

Step 1. Put the kettle on to heat up your 1 cup of water.

Step 2. Measure all of your herbs and place them in a tea ball, cloth, or infuser pot.  Measure the honey into a separate container.

Step 3. Make sure you mash up your juniper berry slightly to release all the good stuff.

Step 4. Add the herbs to your glass container. Once the water is hot enough pour it over the herbs and let them seep for 10 minutes.

Step 5. Scrape the honey into a saucepan.

Step 6. Add the herbal tea mixture. Make sure to squeeze all you can from the bag or ball.

Step 7. Turn the heat on to medium-low. Cook the mixture while stirring often until it reaches about 300 degrees Fahrenheit on a candy thermometer or until it turns completely hard when dropped into a bowl of ice water. It took me about 40 minutes to reach the desired texture.  It’ll be very frothy right before it’s ready.

Step 8. Allow the mixture to cool for about five minutes.  In the meantime, lay out some kind of non-stick paper or mat and grease it with a bit of coconut oil.  You can lay it in a pan to prevent overflow if you want. Pour the mixture onto the middle of the paper and let it sit until you’re able to mold it by hand.

Step 9. Start by pulling little chunks of mixture from the outside edges of the mass where it cools down faster.  Roll them in little balls or chunks and lay them out on the paper to cool all the way off.

Step 10. Once they’ve cooled down completely, you can quickly dust them with a little tapioca starch or arrow root powder. 

They’re ready! Wrap them for storage.  I kept them in the fridge, and they didn’t last long!

These particular herbal sore throat drops shouldn’t be given to children under the age of six or taken by pregnant women. They will last for a few weeks in the fridge and longer in the freezer, but honestly, you’ll probably eat them all before they go bad.  They are kind of like a honey flavored herbal taffy once you get down to the center of them and they can be quite addictive!

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