 This recipe for homemade herbal cough drops uses a combination of herbs and honey to help alleviate cough symptoms and boost immune function, helping with a quick recovery. While there is quite a lot of honey used in this recipe, it's necessary to help form the drops into a candy and to act as a preservative. You will only be consuming around 2-3 of these drops at most a day as well. Unlike the honey cough drops that you find at the store, these drops are made from real, raw honey with no other sweetness. Plus, they're flavoured with real organic herbs to help provide immune boosting properties. You can also use Manuka honey which provides anti-fungal, antibacterial and anti-viral properties. I share a full list of some great herbs to include that may help to soothe the sore throat and ease symptoms of coughing in my recipe post, which I've linked in the description below. I'll be using lemon, peppermint, vene greek, ginger, slippery elm and oregano in this recipe. To make these natural homemade cough drops, you want to start by making the herbal tea. In a medium sized saucepan, bring 2 cups of water to a boil, then add 1 tablespoon of each herb you'll be using into a medium sized bowl and pour the boiling water over the top of the herbs. I used 1 tablespoon each of slippery elm, lemon juice, oregano, fresh ginger which I grated beforehand, peppermint and vene greek seeds. From there, mix the ingredients to combine then let the tea steep for at least 20 minutes or until the water has cooled. Strain out the herbs using a nut milk bag and use 1 cup of the herbal tea for the next part of the recipe. You can place the rest of the tea in the refrigerator and save it for another batch or mix it with 1 cup of raw honey for a simple cough syrup. To make the cough drops, pour 1 cup of the herbal tea into a medium saucepan, then add in 1.5 cups of raw honey and heat the mixture over medium high heat until it reaches 150 degrees celsius or 300 degrees fahrenheit. It's really important that you stir the mixture constantly and keep a close eye on it the entire time to prevent your cough drops from turning into a pan of sticky, scorched syrup. If you don't have a candy thermometer to test the temperature, you can test the mixture is ready by dropping a tiny amount about the size of a drop of the mixture into ice water to see if it hardens immediately. It should harden to the point that the drop breaks if dropped on the counter. You can also tell it's ready when the mixture starts to foam and separate. At this point, remove it from the heat quickly so it doesn't burn. Pour the mixture into candy molds or drop teaspoons of the mixture onto a large sheet of parchment paper. If you are not using molds, you will need to form the mixture into cough drops by hand. Let the mix cool until it is cool enough to touch without burning your skin. This will take around 10 to 15 minutes and then immediately and very quickly form it into cough drop shapes with your hands or a teaspoon dipped in ice cold water, which helps to reduce sticking. Allow the finished cough drops to cool and set in their molds or in the parchment paper. Once completely cool, toss the cough drops in a jar with the mixture of a quarter cup of slippery elm powder and a quarter cup of stevia to prevent them from getting sticky in the humidity. Give the jar a good shake to cover all sides of the lozenges. Then tap off the excess powder and wrap each one securely in wax paper. Place the wrapped drops in a jar with an airtight lid, then store the jar of cough drops in a cool, dry place and use as needed for coughing, congestion or a sore throat. Thank you so much for watching this video tutorial on how to make homemade cough drops. I hope you found it helpful and I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know if you try this recipe yourself and how you go. I'd love to know. I wish you a wonderful day and I'll see you soon again.