Sweet Remedies

Book excerpt: Taking medicine just got a whole lot sweeter! Honey is well known for its healing properties. When infused with the additional benefits of medicinal herbs and fruits, it turns natural remedies that can be unpleasant tasting into a treat to take. Author Dawn Combs makes these traditional herbal honeys — called “electuaries” — and has created her own formulations for addressing a variety of common health ailments. With Sweet Remedies, readers will learn her methods for making electuaries in their home kitchens, using recipes that range from Ache Ease and Sleep Well to Heartful and Calcium for Kids, along with instructions for making simple honey infusions and oxymels — a combination of herbs, honey, and vinegar. Additional recipes offer creative ways to get a daily dose of healing by using herbal honeys in no-bake cookies, smoothies, cocktails, candies, and more. For those with access to the hive, Combs includes an overview of other bee-produced products with healing properties — including pollen, propolis, and royal jelly — and offers advice on how to harvest them sustainably.