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Herbs & Cultures

Cherokee medicine →

Mullein cough syrup

Mullein leaf boiled and sweetened with brown sugar or honey, as the Cherokee made it.

Traditional use

Time
40 minutes
Makes
A bottle of about 250 ml
Great mullein

Mullein too came from Europe and settled in well in America. The Cherokee boiled the leaf into a cough drink sweetened with brown sugar or honey. In Europe mostly the yellow flowers are used: the European Medicines Agency recognises mullein flower as a traditional remedy for a sore throat with a dry cough.

Ingredients

  • 2 tbsp dried mullein leaf or flowers
  • 500 ml water
  • 100 g brown sugar or honey

Step by step

  1. Bring the water to the boil with the mullein and simmer for 10 minutes.
  2. Strain through a coffee filter or a fine cloth.
  3. Reduce the liquid by half and dissolve the sugar in it (add honey only once it has cooled a little).
  4. Keep in the fridge and take a tablespoon three times a day.

Tips

  • Straining through a coffee filter matters: the fine hairs of mullein irritate the throat.

Registry

Herbs in this recipe

Read more about effects and safety on each herb’s page.

  • Caution

    Europe · Herb · № 102

    Great mullein

    Verbascum thapsus

    Leaves and flowers contain mucilage and are traditionally used for irritating coughs and bronchitis; the flower oil for earache. Clinical evidence is limited.

    Greco-Roman medicine+4

Cultures and traditions

Where the herbs come from

The herbs in this recipe also appear in these traditions.