Hi there, dear friends :D
Last year, I came up with a homemade soothing cough remedy using natural ingredients for my eldest son, who was having a really bad cough that didn’t get better despite having visited our family doctor twice and completing two rounds of antibiotics.
Hearing him coughing every minute or so made me so worried that I started looking up the Internet for home remedies for coughs – anything that could help quickly to alleviate my son’s coughing fits. I found many natural cough remedies and with what ingredients I have in my kitchen, I quickly concocted a cough syrup for my son to see if it would give him some relief. Well, it worked very well indeed!
I was happily amazed to find that his persistent cough did reduce quickly to just the occasional cough or two, and best is, he could sleep through the night without any coughing.
I even tested my cough syrup on my skeptical husband when he had bad coughing fits last month. His phlegmy cough got much better just after drinking it once at night before sleeping. The next day at work, his colleagues even asked him for my natural cough remedy recipe when they saw how his cough has lessened a lot so quickly.
Yesterday, my husband started coughing badly again, a dry cough this time. I was surprised that he asked me to make him some my homemade cough syrup right away.
Seeing as how effectively my cough syrup can really soothe a dry or phlegmy cough, and give a good night’s sleep without much coughing, I am sharing here with you my recipe for a homemade, effective, natural cough syrup (it is adapted from the various cough remedies I found online).
All you need are just four ingredients :-
1) alcohol – can be brandy, whisky, vodka – I used Southern Comfort
2) peppermint – can be peppermint candy, or non-caffeinated peppermint tea. I used organic Peppermint teabags
3) good quality honey – preferably organic, or wild honey. I used A.Mangium Honey
4) apple cider vinegar (ACV) – preferably organic
** Note – if preparing this for children above 1 year old, omit the alcohol. This remedy is not recommended for children below 1 year old because of the honey content.
Method :-
1) place 2 bags of Peppermint Tea into a mug. Pour boiling water to fill up half the mug and let the peppermint steep for 5 to 10 minutes, until the tea is lukewarm. If you are using peppermint candy, melt it in some water in a pot on the stove. Cool to lukewarm before adding the rest of the ingredients.
2) pour in 1/4 cup of whisky or brandy
3) stir in 3 tablespoons of honey
4) stir in 3 tablespoons of ACV
** Note – the amount of the ingredients above can be varied to your preference.
5) Mix everything well in the mug
Dosage :-
Immediately, take a few sips to soothe the throat. After that, take a sip whenever you cough. If your cough has lessened, then you sip it every 15 minutes or so. This remedy is best drank after dinner and should last until bedtime. It is okay to make a second batch (another mug) if you feel you need more.
For my husband to soothe his cough during work in the day time, I omitted the alcohol and made the cough remedy using just the ACV, honey and peppermint tea and he said it worked as well …. but he preferred to have the whisky in his cough syrup ! Lol!
Oh, although I called this a cough “syrup”, this drink is nothing syrupy in nature … I just thought that calling it a “cough syrup” sounded better! When I made this drink last night for my husband, my eldest son also wanted a cup of it although he didn’t have any coughs. He liked how the drink is actually nice and soothing, and how he can sleep well because of the whisky. (In case you are wondering, my son is 22 years old.)
Apple cider vinegar and honey have a lot of health benefits. Peppermint has a main active ingredient, menthol, which is a good decongestant. Menthol can help loosen phlegm and is a good expectorant as it thins mucus. It can also soothe the throat and calm a dry cough as well.
So, if you are coughing your lungs out, if you are not getting any relief from your cough medicine, if you can’t sleep due to your bad cough, perhaps you can try out this natural cough remedy – I hope it will work for you and your family, too. Let me know how it goes.
With best wishes,
choesf :D
