Hello Electuary, My Old Friend

a medicinal substance mixed with honey or another sweet substance. 

Do you remember the song from Mary Poppins that says "A spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down?" Well, turn of the century medicines didn't get the bubblegum treatment that our kids can have nowadays. But what if we don't even want bubblegum? What if we want to have an even more palatable, natural way to help make nature's medicines go down even more easily? Allow me to introduce you to electuaries!

An electuary is an old-fashioned way of combining medicines and herbs into something sweet to make it more easily ingested. Depending on the ratio of honey to powdered herbs, it can have a consistency of a syrup or even a lozenge to suck on. The beauty of these remedies is that they have an almost indefinitely stable shelf-life due to honey's amazing ability to preserve because of its antibacterial properties. Mother Nature sure does have a whole arsenal of healing tools in her first aid kit, doesn't she?

First, you need to start of with a really good, raw honey. My favorite of course is the Zach & Zoe Blueberry Honey. Not only is this a sustainably produced local raw honey, but they've added organic blueberries to the honey to give a mega boost in antioxidants and anthocyanins. 

Next you can use any number of our favorite Apothekary Co herb blends but I'll give a couple of examples for specific issues:

• Energy Crash The umami flavor of matcha is hard for some people to take. Mix it into honey and you can take your energy game on the go!

• Acne Let's face it, everything we have to take or use for acne is pretty yuck, but this makes it MUCH better!

• Brain Fog Sometimes you can't brew up a beverage to snap your brain out of whatever fog you're under. A spoon of this power combo can have you firing on all cylinders in no time.

• Irritable Stomach Not everyone enjoys the taste of turmeric. Jazz it up a little bit with some honey to soothe and reduce inflammation.

Depending on your preferences, you can make your electuary thick or more  syrup like by the volume of honey you use. I prefer to have different viscosities to be used in different applications like overnight oats or in cooking. So play around with your taste levels and see what you like best!

 

Make sure to always use clean, dry glass jars with good seals to them. Never introduce water into honey as that can grow science projects very quickly! And always use raw honey from local sources to support our local beekeepers and apiaries. As you know, no bees no food. Support your local honey economies!