A Simple Homemade Cough Syrup! ~ Minty Respiratory Oxymel

Howdy friends and welcome back to the channel. In today's video we're going to learn how to make a respiratory remedy that you'll want to have for your family this winter. I know it's hard to be thinking about making remedies for cold and flu we're in the middle of summer but this is the time when my herbs are alive and vibrant and when I want to be making those remedies to stock my home apothecary and make sure that I'm prepared for the upcoming season. One thing that I love to make every year is a respiratory oxamyl. So I'm going to start by talking to you a little bit about what an oxamyl is. An oxamyl is an extraction where we're using honey and apple cider vinegar. So oxy means acid, mel means honey. So these are the two mediums we're going to use to help pull all those beautiful medicines out of a plant. I really like using oxamyls because just the honey and the vinegar alone are great for the respiratory system, help support the immune system, add a lot of really good healthy bacteria. So of course we want to be using if possible raw local honey and raw apple cider vinegar to get all of those amazing benefits but the herbs you're going to choose well you know what we'll film about that in just a minute. So I'm not going to be sharing an exact recipe with you today because I don't know what you have growing in your garden and I don't know what you have access to. So for those of you who really like to have written instructions I suggest pausing the video going and grabbing a pen and paper and jotting down some of the ideas I have for you in terms of what plants we want to use. Basically I want to use plants that have decongestant properties, expectorant properties to help support the lungs and if I can get an added either antiviral or fever supporting element in there too then that's just a bonus. So let's go wander into my herb gardens and I'll show you some of the plants that I'm going to be using to make my respiratory ox smell today. So before you start harvesting I want you to think about the size of jar that you hope to make. I usually do about a one liter jar, you don't have to you can do 500 ml it really doesn't matter because you're going to be loosely filling that jar all the way to the top with your fresh herbs. So that's going to give you an idea of how much you want to harvest. Now a lot of the plants I'm going to be using today are in the mint family. I love using mint family herbs because one they're very safe, most of them don't have any contraindications which is awesome, two they're tasty so if you've got young kids that you're trying to get this remedy into it really helps if it doesn't taste awful. I'm sure parents in the audience let me know how easy is it to get your kids to take remedies that taste like garbage? Probably not too easy. So mint family usually gets two thumbs up from my kiddo plus a lot of people grow these plants anyway. So most of you will probably have these in your garden or they'll be easy to find. So I really like to work with those plants but the first one I'm going to start with is a lesser known mint family and this is hyssop or hyssop depending on how you pronounce it. Hyssopus officinalis. I think I've done a video on this plant if I have I'll make sure that I link it in the description below. So I'm just gonna take my scissors and start harvesting a bunch of these I love this remedy not only is it supportive to the digestive system and the nervous system but of course what am I using it for today? It's respiratory properties. I want you to remember that when you head inside you're going to be discarding the stock of a lot of these so think again about how much you want to make and harvest just a little extra to compensate for that stock that you'll remove. So another one if you have this growing in your garden that is excellent is lemon balm. So I actually already have a bunch of this harvested in the house but and because I made some tincture from it this morning but I'm definitely going to include it in this oxamyl. What lemon balm brings to the table is its fever modulating properties which I really want. Now right beside the lemon balm actually it wasn't supposed to sneak into this bed is some peppermint and I actually had to plant a brand new peppermint bed this year so I'm going to take a few of these. I really want to have peppermint in here because of its antiviral properties but again it's also a really good expectorant and decongestant. I'm also going to be adding spearmint so don't forget if if all you have is spearmint or all you have is peppermint don't overthink this just make the medicine you can do this work with what you have even if you made an oxamyl with just lemon balm and peppermint just those two plants you would have a great remedy for this winter. We're working so hard so quick to harvest because we are surrounded by mosquitoes out here. Here I am in my spearmint patch and oh and now I just got smacked on the back thanks babe and I'm harvesting up some spearmint for this remedy. My gosh the bugs are so bad this year but isn't that gorgeous? It's well worth getting a couple of bites isn't it? So I just released a video on this plant and I promised that I was going to create a video including this as a remedy and this is wild bergamot. If you're not familiar with Minarda fistulosa you can check out my most recent video but this one has that warmth and that pungency that I want to add to my oxamyl this year and so it's going to help to thin mucus secretions make it easier to cough and so I'm not going to harvest a ton of it because it does have some heat and I do plan on adding some ginger root to this when I get inside but I definitely want to include the energy profile of this plant. Another one you could add if you have it growing in your garden now I've pretty much harvested all of this but I'm going to add again just a tiny amount is holy basil. If you don't have this remember don't panic don't overthink this you can make this with just your mints you can even just do this with ginger if you wanted to. I have a video on that so don't feel like you have to include everything I'm including today I just want you to get outside grab some of those great mint family herbs or those respiratory herbs and make an oxamyl with me so I'm going to harvest just a few of these I don't have enough left to make any more tincture but I love the flavor and again it's got some great respiratory properties so I'll just add just a few. I'm going to include just a couple of sage leaves for good measure the reason I'm only adding a few is because this is an incredibly powerful decongestant and can be a little drying for people. So you can see my plant went to flower quite a while ago but a new stock has popped up and these leaves look great so I'll just go in with my scissors and I'll probably harvest about I don't know two or three it's a very powerful decongestant if you are nursing I would not recommend adding any sage at all. I'm just extra cautious but it is such a powerful anti-cataral that it could actually dry up your milk. So once you're inside with your magical herbal bounty you're going to want to process your plants so what that means is you're going to discard the stalk so this is the part that's really woody you know it definitely serves a purpose in a plant it's a transportation mechanism it helps hold the plant up to the sun but in terms of medicinal properties there's not a whole lot going on so what I'm going to do especially with something like bergamot I will just pop the top off of the flower and then I'm going to run my fingers along the stem in the opposite direction in which it grows and that's going to pull all the leaves off for me and then discard. So if I have something like my hysop here same idea I'm just going to go in the opposite direction in which it grows and slide my way down the stem and so this is going to take a little while but this is also a really beautiful opportunity for you to kind of connect with plants I encourage you to be sort of present and aware while you're doing this you know don't watch a video or listen to a podcast I mean of course do what you want but if you want to deepen your connection with plants and really start to learn about their properties and work with them in a deeper way this is a great opportunity while you're processing your herb material. So I'm going to get to de-stemming all of my mint and my beautiful plants and when I'm done I'll show you the next step of the process. I have all my herb material processed so as you can see we've removed the stems now I know this looks like a lot but we're going to chop it friends so that way it will fit in your jar. Now if you did happen to harvest too much this would make a really delicious iced tea so don't throw all the rest of that out make sure that you save anything that doesn't quite fit into your jar and we don't want to pack it in there either we want it loosely filled at least halfway but ideally three-quarters of the way or all the way full if you pack it in there it's going to be really hard for that honey and that apple cider vinegar to actually work its way around all of the plant material. So just as a reminder what I have in here is spearmint, peppermint, lemon balm, I have a little bit of holy basil, I have some wild bergamot, some hyssop, and I think what was it two or three sage leaves and I'm going to chop up a few pieces of ginger as well when I'm done chopping all of this and add that to it so it's going to have that warmth it's not going to be too spicy because our mints are nice and cooling but it's going to have enough warmth that it's going to help especially if you have like a really thick congestion in the lungs and you know you just can't seem to cough it up. So I'm going to get to chopping now I love using for those who've been watching me for a while you guys you love my mezzaluna why wouldn't you I'll put a link below to one that is similar to mine people ask all the time where I got mine from I bought it at an actual kitchen store probably babe how long ago I can't even remember how long ago I was in herb school probably at least 15 17 years ago so I can't help you out there but thanks to the worldwide interwebs there are lots available online I do recommend getting a wider handled one the little guys are really cumbersome to work with so I'm just gonna roughly chop this herb material now and if this is the first time seeing a mezzaluna in action you can see why people love it it makes short work of chopping herb material so as I'm working you can see I'm like taking the parts on the outside that didn't quite get chopped and moving it inwards and you just rock back and forth but you can use any knife you have right you don't have to go out and buy a mezzaluna but if you are planning on processing a lot of herb material for things like tinctures oxamels witch hazel infusions you know this may be a good investment or it might be something to ask for a next gift gift giving occasion so I've got my herb material nice and chopped and what I'm gonna do now as I mentioned I'm making a one liter jar or a quart I think is what this is called in the U.S. you can do this in any size jar you want think about how much your family will go through I like to have extra just in case I also really like using wide mouth funnels not necessary so I'm gonna fill this about halfway and then I'm gonna chop my ginger root now so I'm gonna fill about half of that move the herbs aside on my cutting board and just start now this is organic ginger so I don't actually have to peel it but it is dry so I might peel some of that off actually the rest of it looks pretty good so I'll just cut off the parts that got a little dry and then I will roughly chop this with this knife and then I'll go back in with my mezzaluna and give it a good fine chop now the ginger is optional if you don't like the taste of ginger or you don't want it that spicy at all you can you know you don't have to add the ginger and you certainly don't have to add the wild bergamot so I'll just go in with my mezzaluna and give this a bit of a chop so now I'm just going to add in the ginger and then top off with the rest of my herbs so the amount of honey and vinegar is very much to taste so if let's say you are struggling with blood sugar issues and you don't want to use a lot of honey you don't have to have had pardon me you don't have to add any you could just make what's called an acetic which is an apple cider vinegar extraction if you have young kids and you want to make sure this is palatable for them feel free to add a little extra I like to include at least one cup of honey if I'm doing a one liter mason jar like this now as you can see mine is about three quarters of the way full that's perfect I'm not worried that I didn't fill it all the way now we had to warm up our honey because it has crystallized so I'm going to pour that over the herbs now everyone always asks why I don't just mix the honey and apple cider vinegar right away and that's because I don't know often I don't know exactly how many herbs are going to end up in the jar and I don't want to create that ratio and end up having a bunch left over I really want to make sure I get about a cup of honey I know that's what my family likes what my son finds palatable and then from here I'll top up with the apple cider vinegar I actually might want to add a little bit more honey to this so I'm going to leave a bit of space in the top and melt a little bit more and I'll see you when that's done all right I topped off with a little bit more honey and apple cider vinegar I recommend giving the jar a bit of a shake and then taking that lid off again because as things settle you may have to add a little bit more vinegar if you're using a plastic top like me you can just put it straight on if you're using a metal lid I do recommend putting a piece of parchment paper as a barrier between the lid and the contents especially because we're using vinegar it will absolutely corrode your end product what I like about these plastic tops is I can actually just write on the top here so here is my minty oxomel and today is the 18th I think it is 18th of July 24th so that way I know how long this has been sitting now I'm likely not going to strain or press this until I need it in the winter so I'm just going to have it sit in a cool dark location until I need it but you want it to sit for at least three to four weeks ideally longer so that way the herbs can or the honey and the apple cider vinegar can start to pull out all that beautiful medicine from our plants in terms of dosing remember I'm not allowed to give any dosing or medical information or anything that be could could be considered treatment but what I can say is my family takes this very much like a cough syrup hopefully that helps now if you've got any questions of course you know what to do leave those in the comments below and until next time this is Corrine from Spirea Herbs wishing you health and wellness