Tuesday 13 May 2008

Honeysuckle Honey & Honeysuckle Vinegar

After the fragrance of the honeysuckle wine made on Saturday evening, I decided to try my hand at making more herbal goodies with the wonderful fragrant honeysuckle from the garden, and this time honeysuckle remedies seemed like a really good idea. However as the fragrance is only in the flowers from early evening I had to wait until tonight to pick the flowers I needed. I thought I was going mad this afternoon when the honeysuckle smelt of absolutely nothing, so if you're going to try this, make sure you wait until your honeysuckle is at its most fragrant in the evening.

The honeysuckle honey recipe is from Julie Bruton-Seals book Hedgerow Medicine: Harvest and Make Your Own Herbal Remedies and its really easy to make, fill a jar with honeysuckle flowers, pure on honey (I used 3 parts acacia honey to 1 part orange blossom honey, because that's all I had in) and leave it in a sunny window for two weeks, (remember to press the flowers down into the honey if they rise above the surface or they'll go brown) after the two weeks are up, strain the honey from the petals and bottle and label it, its a perfect remedy for sore throats. Dosage is 1 teaspoonful as needed or three times a day.

Because I'd had some success with the lavender, rosemary, lemon verbena and sage vinegars I made last year I decided I;d try using honeysuckle flowers and make a honeysuckle vinegar. I thought I could combine it with the honeysuckle honey to help with winter sore throats. It can be used cosmetically as an astringent toner for the skin, or it can add a floral kick to salad dressings, or I could maybe add a splash to the mop bucket like I do the lavender and rosemary vinegar. The scent of the honeysuckle is really strong, I filled my jar three quarters full and then poured in enough cider vinegar to cover the petals, a quick stir to make sure there was no air bubbles, and as I put the lid down it already smelt wonderful.

I'm going to have a try at drying some petals for pot pourri next, and maybe see if I can make an infused oil with more of the fresh flowers. I can't wait for the lavender season to begin, I'll try the same floral honey method with the lavender and see what happens. This year I'll be making a huge supply of the lavender vinegar as its wonderful stuff and really easy to make.

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