Herbal Cough Syrup

 At least once a year someone in the house gets a cold or the flu. It was me this year and I've been fighting the miserable thing all week. I prefer to use herbs to help lessen the symptoms rather than bought cold remedies. When I started coughing I got busy making a new batch of my cough syrup. We think it works as well as anything we have bought. One of the most important ingredients is the inner bark from the black cherry tree. I dug around in the cabinet we keep such things in and came up with all the ingredients except the cherry bark. Apparently I neglected to gather more when the last batch was used up. I should be thankful that it was the cherry bark I didn't have because I can gather that even though it is winter. If it had been any of the other ingredients I wouldn't have been able to find them now. It has been cold enough that the bark is frozen tight on the trees. I got around that by cutting a small branch and bringing it in to thaw. Once it had warmed up enough I pealed off strips of it's very aromatic bark. If you have the right tree, the inner bark should have a strong scent of bitter almond. Only the inner bark is used so the bark needs to be cleaned. Cherry bark is fairly easy to separate the inner bark from the outer. The pic shows me using a knife to peel off the outer bark. I will be bottling up my concoction today. It does take a few days to make it and of course I am just about over my cold, or at least I hope I am! The recipe is on the recipe page if you want to see what I put in it.
 Please be assured that this is not medical advice and you go see your doctor before doing anything radical like making your own herbal medicine.