Cough Drops

Try this homemade cough drops recipe the next time you need something to soothe your sore throat.  Carefully selected herbs also make these great as natural cold and flu remedies.

After getting knocked out by an H1N1 vaccine, I had plenty of time to consider just what I was looking for in a lozenge.  I wanted something herbal and not overly potent, not too sweet, but tasty enough to finish. 

You can make these with any flavor or coloring you prefer - a blend of your favorite sickness-busting herbs is a great way to go.  I'll suggest a few in the next step.  But if you don't have access to such things, or you just want results NOW, consider what you might already have on hand!

Making hard candy requires sugar (or a lot of crazy chemical sugar substitutes), and flavor.   That's about it.  So why not take some of the yummy herbal blend teas I so love and stock up for times of sickness like these, and lozenge-ify those?  A perfect cup of tea in a long-lasting lozenge.  Perfect!

Step 1 Ingredients

I made these as simply as possible with herbal tea and sugar.  That's really all you need.

But if you want to get fancy, you can use a blend of sugar or substitutes, food coloring, additional flavors, and custom blend your own herbs.

Some great herbs (and their uses) for lozenges are:

• Horehound - (be careful - this stuff is strong!) pain reliever, stimulates digestion
• Echinacea - best before full onset of cold, anti-bacterial + blood cleanser
• Peppermint - expectorant, decongestant and mild pain reliever
• Eucalyptus - relieves congestion
• Camphor - relieves congestion
• Ginger - pain relieving, antiseptic and antioxidant
• Goldenseal - antiseptic and immune stimulant
• Licorice - anti-viral, chest and throat soother
• Sage - good for sore throats
• Fennugreek - expectorant
• Juniper - relieves congestion
• Yarrow - reduces fevers and inflammation

I also used powdered sugar to make my candy molds, and to toss them in so they wouldn't be so sticky.  If you have candy molds, these work just as well!

Finally, a well-calibrated candy thermometer makes this task almost effortless!  To make sure it's accurate, check the temperature of a cup of boiling water to be certain it registers 212^oF (100^oC).  If it doesn't, make note of the difference.

Comments

[Saturn V]

YAY!!! Homemade mints! Do you know how to get a wintergreen flavor?

[GyroGearLoose47]

One might try essentialoils.com

[IrishTink]

I tried the powdered sugar mold and I'm not sure where it went wrong but instead of acting as a mold, the mixture dissolved the powered sugar and now it just looks like mush. Any Idea why???

[7under1roof]

Sounds like you may not have let your 'candy' get to 300F. when you use a candy thermometer, you clip it to the side of the pan and don't take it off, and keep the tip just above the floor of the pan so that it's not touching the floor of the pan itself.
I think if you try again and make sure it gets all the way to 300 you will be successful!

[smcgill1]

Thanks for this wonderful recipe & details. I made honey ginger drops (with mostly white sugar) and they turned out great! I put photos and how I made the ginger tea on my blog.

[OrIsIt]

You thing I can put in zotz powder(forgot the instructable but last time i checked they closed it) to make candy with this?

[OrIsIt]

Think*

[OrIsIt]

What do you do with the leftover sugars

[jantinarose]

I made these tonight, and I'm not sure if I did something wrong, but it took 2 1/2 hours to get these to the hard crack stage. Is that normal?

[QueenQuill]

Use a candy thermometer, and a sugar temperature stages guide. Here's one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candy If you don't have a candy thermometer, they you can do a cold water test as described here: http://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/candy/sugar-stages.html Enjoy!

[Super_pride1146]

Hi Scooch, I was wondering, if I make say four cups of my choice of tea, then do I use four cups of sugar as well? Also, how long did it take you to reach the hard crack stage?

[keastes]

just a thought here why not use cornstarch? less of a sugar sock when you first use it, it shouldnt affect the taste, also when you said licorice, did you mean anise?

[adam72]

I use coughdrops a lot for sore throats, or even just as a treat and I thought this would be a great idea. My only question is, where do you think I could get some of these herbs? A store? Thanks!

[Knightsabre]

 Great 'ible!  One thing I noticed that has been bugging me a little...you say to wash away any crystals from the side of the pan when boiling the sugar, but you don't say why.  I don't remember for sure, but there is a significant reason for that, correct?

Then again, I could just be thinking about it too hard.  ;)  I would love to try this sometime, but I don't have the supplies/facilities right now!

[frollard]

The syrup you boil out the water until its a supersaturated liquid sugar.  As it cools it no longer holds its solid shape and slowly hardens.  It really really wants to be solid, but stays liquid a bit longer than it should because of the temperature.
If you add just 1 solid sugar crystal to it, it will 'flash crystallize' - where one seed crystal is all it takes to catalyze the hardening, and you will have a solid crystal in your pot and no candy :(
Keep your pot edges clean! 

Sidenote:  Same reaction happens to sodium acetate in those clicky crystal heating pads that you boil and melt the crystals - they stay statically as a liquid until they're shocked into hardenning, the clicker creates one crystal, and the rest grow instantly...

[Knightsabre]

 Ah, yes...now THAT sounds like what's been lurking at the edge of my memory!

Thanks!

[frollard]

yeah; searching virtually any hard candy instructions and it should refer to doing this pot-cleaning.  I should make a video showing it happening.

[sameotoko]

they burn on the sides of the pan and ruin the flavor, coloration and texture of your caramel. Its a lot easier to brush them of with a damp pastry brush than witha  damp cloth, and a lot less dangerous

[scoochmaroo]

Yup, that's it!
And good point about the cloth - I've never tried it, but I've seen it recommended more than once. 

[Knightsabre]

 Ah, yes.  Thanks for the reply, both of you!  :)

[whiteoakart]

I made a batch this weekend.  My 11 year old daughter was suffering with a sore throat.  We made them with Peach Juice, her favorite.  I forgot to take a photo.  :(

Just don't bite down on them. They'll pull your teeth right out.  Or glue your mouth shut, if you have very strong teeth.

It took a long time to get to 250 degrees F.  Then a matter of seconds to go to 300.  Good thing I was keeping an eye on the thermometer.

[Shesu]

Sweet! With my allergy to red food coloring, I can't eat some of the cough drops in the store. In fact, just the other week I was looking at some supplement drops, but the only one with more than just C had red food coloring in it. Now I can make my own! I just love DIY.

You might be able to add a vitamin pill in there too for added vitamins, but then again many of these tea making plants have lots of vitamins already. My question is how to add zinc.

BTW, with that horehound, be careful. The plant looks a lot like catnip (I know this from experience - yuck).

[sameotoko]

you dont.... most vitamins will be destroyed by the heat and all minerals will concentrate, sometimes forming inactive compounds and some other times reaching poisonous levels; like iodine in tap water

[frollard]

Yup, they need adding at the very last moment, and even still only have a short lifespan at high temperature.

[mrdavidlowe]

 I made these tonight and obviously didn't allow them to boil long enough. They ended up being crumbly, but the powdered sugar molds were awesome. It was awesome to watch the candied mixture suck into the mold and out of the sugar. I will make these again tomorrow and let it go all the way to 300 F. They tasted good, just not the right consistancy.

[scoochmaroo]

Excellent!

[Mitsuskitzo]

You confuse me. You seem to be big in to herbal remedies yet you get the H1N1 flu vaccine dont you know whats in that vaccine. thats like being a vegitarian and eating steak once a year

[scoochmaroo]

Yeah, my boss said we had to. 
It's the first vaccine I've ever gotten (since I was a wee lass)
It could well have been something else I was fighting at the time that took over once I got injected.  I'm not a big fan, and I probably won't do it again.

[Mitsuskitzo]

I would have quite my job or gotten fired If I was forced to inject something in me that is potentially harmful or even crippling or life threatening. I'm sorry no job is worth that

[sameotoko]

never underestimate the placebo effect.... that's pretty much all the therapeutical benefit you'll get from herbs and it's still strong enough to cause debate to this day

[thefallenhero]

Actually I think you'll find that some herbs have very potent healing properties, an have been used for centuries.

[den_of_thieves]

LOL. Do yourself a favor and pick up a small bottle of Clove oil, swab a bit of that on the inside of your cheek and tell me how much of a placebo effect you fe
el, (It'll numb up your mouth pretty well).

Don't underestimate the herbs. Some of them are as strong as very potent Pharmaceuticals (like belladonna, a very strong painkiller used when a patient has developed resistance to traditional meds).

[Mitsuskitzo]

Now see thats not true. Im very familiar with the placebo effect. You expect me to believe that every disease and illness can only be cured and treated by pharmaceuticals that are only man made. Nature has healing powers, be it in herbs, trees, plants, dirt, minerals, vitamins, and even our own bodies. Most man made medicines usually kill our natual ability to cure our selves they completly vaporize our immune system and then they make it seem like you have no choice but to rely on their medicine wich you pay for. I dont use any kind of man made medicines and i very rarely get sick. If and when i do it dosent last any more than a day. My immune system erradicates what ever is ailing me.

[thistlechick]

I had forgotten how long it takes to achieve hard crack... ages and ages... but this Instructable makes it so worth the wait.

[scoochmaroo]

Yes! It does! Ages! I was surprised myself.  Even burned the first batch.
It takes forever to get there, but once it's there, no dawdling!

[porcupinemamma]

Awe thanks :0)  BTW-did you see my new picture of my grandchildren?

[355374]

Well done this is really good!
You were really clever  to make up this recipie!

[Mitsuskitzo]

no offence though i was just making an observation. thanks for the recipes

[Ojibwa Chick]

You need a lot of sugar for the candies to harden, yes, I do understand the chemistry. But is there anyway to tweak the recipe so one could use an alternative sweetener? Like stevia  or  honey?

[scoochmaroo]

I think it's worth a try. I don't have much luck with stevia, but I haven't put a lot of time into mastering it.  Honey may well make a softer chew than a hard candy lozenge like the agave nectar did.  Still awesome.
Splenda is a good substitute because its chemical structure is still similar to sugar.