How to Make Homemade Elderberry Cough Drops

You may have noticed elderberry cough drops at the store. They are easy – and fun! – to make at home with just a few ingredients. And they taste wonderful.

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What is Elderberry?

Elderberry – or sambucus, as it’s called in Latin – is a flowering plant that produces little tiny purplish-black berries. The berries taste very tart and a little bit sweet – it’s an interesting flavor, but they can be unpleasantly bitter.

European black elderberry is used in traditional medicine, usually in the form of a syrup or cordial to make them taste better. They contain a moderate amount of vitamin B6 and iron.

Because these particular berries don’t grow in much of North America, those of you in that region won’t often find syrup made from locally grown berries. But you can find small batch, handcrafted syrups made by farmers and small businesses.

 

The use of elderberries in traditional medicine is – supposedly – to prevent or shorten colds, flu, and a few other minor ailments. It’s essentially  supposed to boost your immune system and your body’s own healing powers.

Do Elderberry Cough Drops Work? What Science Says

You may be wondering about the science behind elderberry as a supplement, and you should. The truth is, not enough studies have been done..

At the time this article was originally published, the Cleveland Clinic had an article stating that elderberry showed promise as an immune booster. But later studies have suggested the results are more mixed. And with flu, it doesn’t seem to help at all.

But they point out that elderberry syrup, properly prepared, is not going to hurt you. So if you want to give it a try, you should feel free to do so. And that’s the main ingredient in these cough drops.

We can also tell you that these are going to help your throat. Any cough drop with sugar or (even better) honey as a base is soothing when you have a cough or a sore throat.

How to Make Elderberry Cough Drops

This is a simple project with just a few ingredients. It doesn’t take a lot of time, either – about half an hour when we made them.

You need some elderberry syrup, raw honey, a candy thermometer, a dropper, and silicone candy molds if you want them.

Basically, you’re going to mix elderberry syrup with raw honey on the stove and let them harden into lozenges. There is some cooking involved, but it’s pretty simple – all in a saucepan.

You start by putting the syrup into your saucepan. After that, you’re going to add the raw honey. You could use regular honey, but it can be diluted with additives. Raw honey is the real deal.

Then you do some whisking to make sure the honey and elderberry syrup are thoroughly mixed together:

Then you clip the candy thermometer to the side wait until the mixture gets to 300 degrees. This should only take a few minutes, but watch it carefully to keep it from burning.

One thing you should know is that the water content in honey varies, so sometimes the mixture won’t heat up as much as it should. If that happens, you can add small increments of honey until it gets to 300 degrees.

Once it’s done, you use your dropper to put the mixture into your silicone molds. Or you can drop it onto parchment paper where it will form nice little round disks.

Just this amount of the mixture will easily make a lot of cough drops.

Once they’ve cooled, you put them on parchment paper. They’re very sticky at this point. We dusted them with cinnamon powder because it makes the cough drops less sticky and it tastes delicious.

Refrigerating them also helps with the sticky part – and a cold lozenge can feel so good on a sore throat.

If you put them into a glass bottle, you can add the cinnamon and shake them up to get them thoroughly covered. This ensures they won’t get sticky again (unless they get hot).

Some recipes call for you to essentially make your own syrup as part of the process. We recommend against this because there are several species of elderberry and some are toxic.

It’s simpler and safer to buy syrup from someone who is licensed, insured, and inspected, and knows which berries to use and how to correctly prepare them.

Why Make Your Own?

So why would you want to make elderberry cough drops at home instead of just buying them at the store? There are a few reasons people mention.

1. Because you can make them without the “artificial” ingredients – meaning lab made, as opposed to plant or animal based – you find in the cough drops at stores.
2. You can make them from locally farmed raw honey and support your farmer’s market.
3. You can use an elderberry syrup made by a small business in the United States and help support them.
4. Store bought cough drops are usually individually wrapped in plastic. Making your own means not having all that plastic to recycle.
5. You can tinker with the recipe to get it just the way you like.

Speaking of tinkering, you can add ingredients to this recipe. Some people add in herbs they believe to be immune boosters.

Note that these herbs may significantly change the flavor. You can also add in flavor ingredients – lemon or ginger, a fruit juice, whatever you like.

Safe for Children?

Yes, these elderberry cough drops are safe for kids. They may also love the flavor, which is an added bonus.

We made ours into little bear shaped drops which appeal to kids, using gummy bear silicone molds. But you can just drop them on parchment paper, too.

What Do They Taste Like?

Elderberries have a very tart or bitter taste on their own. Even if you like tart and bitter flavors, this flavor is a little too intense.

So elderberry syrup is flavored with other ingredients. The syrup we used is flavored with cinnamon, ginger, clove and lemon. And raw honey is added for sweetness.

Combined with the sweetness of the raw honey, you get a spicy sweet flavor that is reminiscent of horehound candy. We found it very tasty and kind of addictive.

You can check out some other homemade cough drop recipes.