How to make homemade elderberry syrup using essential oils
The elderberry is a unique plant that produces edible flowers and berries that are beautiful and are really beneficial to your health. Making elderberry syrup isn’t nearly as difficult as I thought, and it actually tastes good! Follow along here to get tips on making elderberry syrup using essential oils that will pack a punch of Vitamin C along with other antioxidants!
The first thing you need to do in order to make elderberry syrup is to correctly identify the elderberry plant. Elderberries have wood covered stems. There are several plants that look similar to elderberries, but truly the simplest way to tell if it is an elderberry or not is by looking at the stems. The stems will be covered with soft bark – ie- they will be brown! Elderflowers are pretty easy to spot in road ditches and by trails because of their large creamy white blossoms against the green grasses.
There are a couple times throughout the spring/summer/fall that you’ll want to harvest from elderberry bushes. One app that I really enjoy using is the iNaturalist app. It allows me to take pictures of plants and get recommendations on what that plant is called. Another really cool feature is that it will allow you to track GPS Coordinates of anything I want. Then I’m able to save the elderberry’s location so I can come back and harvest berries, just in case I forgot where all of the locations are. After I started purposefully looking for elderberries I saw them everywhere!!!
How to harvest elderflowers
Elderflowers are out anytime from the end of May to August. If you want to be able to harvest elderberries from the same plant make sure you leave blossoms. I tend to clip blossoms from the lower branches of the plant, just to make checking ripeness of elderberries, and picking the elderberries easier. Elderflowers are ready to pick when blossoms are open to show off the petals and small, yellow anthers of the flower. You will want to pick the entire umbel (flower head) when there are as many blossoms open as possible, but they haven’t started turning brown. I simply use kitchen scissors to cut the stem under the branches of the elderflower. You can dehydrate these, or you can even freeze dry them, and they turn out beautifully. The Harvest Right Freeze Dryer really preserves the entire shape of the flowers and really locks them in place. It really is quite amazing!!
How to harvest elderberries
Elderberries are ready to harvest when the whole umbel (flower head) has turned completely from white blossoms to dark purple berries. You will want to wait to harvest until all of the berries are dark purple, very little red-ish/maroon colored and ideally no or very few green berries within the umbel of berries. I’ll occasionally get some green elderberries in the umbel, and I’ll just pick them off and deal with the rest of the umbel of great, fully mature elderberries.
How to make homemade elderberry syrup using essential oils
Making homemade elderberry syrup wasn’t nearly as intimidating as I made it up in my mind to be!! First things first, I cut the umbels of berries from the plant with a pair of kitchen scissors at peak readiness, brought them in and washed them! This is actually super important because we live on a gravel road and they are super dusty, and the wild birds poop on them while they grab a few bites! After letting them drip dry for a little while I put them into gallon zip top baggies and let them freeze. They are so much easier to take off of the stem when they are frozen, rather than while they are fresh. Like hard, tiny little marbles, they practically fall off of the stems after freezing. I followed this recipe for Homemade Elderberry Syrup, except for I used essential oils instead of the spices the recipe calls for.
Homemade Elderberry Syrup with Essential Oils
Elderberries are packed with Vitamin C, which may help prevent and shorten colds. Using essential oils add another layer of quality that just can't be beat!
Ingredients
- 1 cup of dried elderberries (or 4 cups of fresh or frozen elderberries)* (see notes for details)
- 4 cups of water
- ½ to 1 cup local raw honey (or pure maple syrup)
- Clove, Ginger and Cinnamon Bark Essential Oils** (see instructions for usage)
Instructions
*Frozen elderberries work just as well as dried or fresh. They may be substituted equally for fresh elderberries.
- Add elderberries and water into a large pot.
- Allow mixture to come to a boil, reduce to medium heat and simmer, stir occasionally for approximately 45 minutes or until the mixture has reduced to half.
- Remove from heat. Use a fine mesh strainer or a cheesecloth to strain liquid from berries. Use a spoon to press berries to release any additional liquid. Strain again to discard any remaining seeds that slipped through the strainer. Discard remaining pulp.
- Once the mixture has cooled to a temperature that you can comfortably hold the outside of the bowl for five to ten seconds then you may add in honey. Start with half of a cup, stir until completely dissolved. Using crystallized honey will be just fine, and a great use for it, as the warm liquid will help to melt it.
- **Next, drop 1 drop each of Clove, Ginger and Cinnamon Bark Essential Oil over a toothpick and swirl into the liquid. Trust me, what remains on the toothpick will be plenty!
- Taste to see if you would like the mixture to be sweeter. If so, add another ¼ cup of honey, and adjust accordingly.
- Pour into a glass storage jar, seal tightly, and refrigerate for up to three months.
Usage
Children may consumer ½-1 tsp daily
Adults 1 Tablespoon daily.
You may use the same doses every 2-3 hours during illness.
Pregnant and breastfeeding women are not advised to take elderberry syrup, due to the lack of research in this area, according to this article from the National Laboratory of Medicine
Homemade Elderberry Syrup Recipe using Essential Oils
1 cup of dried elderberries (or 4 cups of fresh or frozen elderberries)* (see notes for details)
4 cups of water
½ to 1 cup local raw honey (or pure maple syrup)
Clove, Ginger and Cinnamon Bark Essential Oils** (see instructions for usage)
Instructions
*Frozen elderberries work just as well as dried or fresh. They may be substituted equally for fresh elderberries.
Add elderberries and water into a large pot.
Allow mixture to come to a boil, reduce to medium heat and simmer, stir occasionally for approximately 45 minutes or until the mixture has reduced to half.
Remove from heat. Use a fine mesh strainer or a cheesecloth to strain liquid from berries. Use a spoon to press berries to release any additional liquid. Strain again to discard any remaining seeds that slipped through the strainer. Discard remaining pulp.
Once the mixture has cooled to a temperature that you can comfortably hold the outside of the bowl for five to ten seconds then you may add in honey. Start with half of a cup, stir until completely dissolved. Using crystallized honey will be just fine, and a great use for it, as the warm liquid will help to melt it.
**Next, drop 1 drop each of Clove, Ginger and Cinnamon Bark Essential Oil over a toothpick and swirl into the liquid. Trust me, what remains on the toothpick will be plenty!
Taste to see if you would like the mixture to be sweeter. If so, add another ¼ cup of honey, and adjust accordingly.
Pour into a glass storage jar, seal tightly, and refrigerate for up to three months.
Children may consumer ½-1 tsp daily
Adults 1 Tablespoon daily.
You may use the same doses every 2-3 hours during illness.
Pregnant and breastfeeding women are not advised to take elderberry syrup, due to the lack of research in this area, according to this article from the National Laboratory of Medicine
I hope using the elderflowers and elderberries are are useful for you, and if nothing else, you added another tool to your toolbox. Truly, this is a simple recipe, and I think you should give it a try. Using essential oils to make this homemade elderberry syrup is super simple! There are many benefits of using plant-based products, and you may find that you simply like the taste and/or smell plants. If you’re interested in learning about the Top 10 Great Plants to Grow for a Tea Garden, look here!
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