Making Syrup According to Art

If you want to start working with our early modern materia medica and more traditional methods of preparation, you will have to step up your syrup-making skills. This was a ubiquitous skill and so often the receipts we read don’t give us specific directions. Luckily, Culpeper seemed utterly disgusted with his colleagues’ syrup making skills, so he had a lot to say about making syrup that is pretty much on track with what I learned growing up.

But first some history…

The use of simple syrup as medicine was first documented by the Greeks who made a syrup from honey and water. We call this hydromel from the Latin húdōr (water) + mel (honey) Hippocrates recommended it often in Regimen in Acute Disease.

Galen talked about making a hydromel by boiling the honeycomb with water and being sure to squeeze the liquid from the comb before serving, but neither he nor Hippocrates wrote about fermentation. These early authors aren’t super clear on the exact recipe, but Aeginita shared the following preparation method.

“The honied water may be prepared by adding eight parts of water to the honey, and thus boiling it until it ceases from frothing. It is expedient also to clear away the scum as soon as formed.”

Paulus Aegineta, Medical Compendium in Seven Parts, ca late 7th century

Hydromel could apparently be made without cooking because I found this:

Boiled hydromel has a much more elegant appearance than the unboiled, being clear, thin, white, and transparent, but I am unable to mention any good quality which it possesses that the other wants.

Hippocrates On Regimen in Acute Diseases

Aeginita also mentions a “mead used by certain nations of the north. They prepare it with hops and yeast, so that it is made to emulate the nature of wine” and said it could be considered a species of hydromel, but the Greeks did not make it. I’ve always kind of half theorized that the “inventors” of mead were people whose medicinal syrups went “off” and they just rolled with it, but this kind of refutes that. Perhaps they discovered fermentation was the best way to preserve their syrups? It’s hard to make a shelf-stable syrup with honey.

So that explains modern confusion about the difference between hydromel and mead in Northern European culture. The learned elite of antiquity were describing an indigenous practice with their terminology and confused everyone.

Metheglin is another name for mead that came into the English language from the Welsh language, sometime in the 16th century. Its roots are the Welsh meddyg which is from the classical Latin medicus for a professional teacher of the healing arts and llyn which meant liquor.

Juhanni Norri‘s medical dictionary distinguishes between hydromel and mead saying both were made by boiling water and honey, but that mead was fermented. Through the 1400s the term hydromel was most often used in English works by physicians emulating Galen’s practice who did not mean for it to be fermented but meant for it to be “water sodden with honey.”

The Greeks also used syrups such as hydromel and oxymel as carriers for medicinal agents. When older works were translated from Greek and classical Latin to Arabic, they used the word šarāb for these preparations which was translated into medieval Latin siroppus which led to the use of the word sirrup. I think this receipt may very well be an example of that older method.

A Sirrup for a Cold.

Take Coltsfoot, Water Hysop, water and Honey, put Liquorice, Annise seeds, and Elecampane, put thereto the juyce of Fennel, and boil them well.

Elizabeth Grey A choice manual of rare and select secrets in physick 1653

Sometimes one might whip up a syrup on the spot and use it up quickly, but syrups were also an important means of preservation. Medicinal syrups were often stored away as “simples” meaning they were made with single ingredients such as gillyflowers (carnations), violet, or maidenhair. These syrups were then used when compounding.

Syrups remained immensely popular in domestic medicine through the early 20th century when they were replaced by drug store syrups. I keep several made up on a regular basis. In this post I am not going to talk about the properties of various syrups though, I just want to cover the process of making a shelf-stable syrup.

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Making Simple Syrup

Here are two different formulas for making syrup. While both syrups end up with a concentration of 80% sugar, some people feel the lean formula gives you a better flavor. I am not sure about that. You should experiment and see what you think.

The only significant difference between the two will be the cooking time. It takes longer to cook the lean syrup to the thread stage than the rich mixture does. Culpeper recognized the benefits of the shorter cooking time and warned us to “ad twice so much Sugar as is of the infusion” to avoid boiling away the strength of our syrups.

Rich Simple Syrup
1000g sugar (caster, granulated or brown)
500mL water

Lean Simple Syrup
500g sugar (caster, granulated or brown)
500mL water

Pick a Tall Wide Pot: Place the sugar and water in a saucepan with a heavy bottom and tall sides. Either of these would do, but I use the one on the right because it is wider and allows for more evaporation.

Do Not Overstir: Stir the mixture until the sugar is dissolved, but don’t stir excessively after that. It prolongs the cooking time.

Just knock the mixture down as it rises, so it doesn’t boil over. Some early modern receipts call this rising a whalm and tell you to knock them down and let your preparation come to a specified number of whalms.

Cook To Thread Stage: Cooking syrups for the proper amount of time is crucial if you want them to be shelf stable. Those cooked for too short a period will ferment and those cooked for too long will crystallize. To get a proper consistency the syrup should be boiled until the thread stage which is 110 -112 C (230-234 F).

That temperature indicates that enough of the water has boiled out of the syrup that it will not ferment. It has to do with the boiling point of sugar vs. water and the concentration of sugar in the final product should be around 80%.

Precisely when your syrup reaches the thread stage can be tested by putting a drop of the syrup in cool water. The syrup should form a thread that will break up before it hits the bottom of the jar.

Once you have made syrups several times you will begin to recognize a difference in the way that the syrup bubbles when it is ready. I suggest that you become comfortable leaving syrups boiling while you are working on other projects because this can take a while.

Bottle Properly: It’s important to put a tight fighting lid on. Syrups are hygroscopic and can absorb moisture from the air which will lead to the contents of the jar fermenting. Keep in mind that ring/flat lids for Mason jars are not airtight. They are designed to let air escape during the canning process.

If you cook syrup to the proper stage and store it in an airtight bottle, it should be shelf-stable and not need to be refrigerated.

Flavoring Simple Syrups: The easiest way to add flavor to a simple syrup is to add 1 tsp of baking extract or tincture to every cup of syrup. The addition of alcohol might even serve to help preserve your syrup a bit, but it’s not enough to be therapeutic.

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Making Therapeutic Syrups

I prefer to make a variety of syrups that are made with one ingredient so that I can mix and match them at will. I have different methods I use depending on whether I am starting with dried plant material or fresh.

Fresh Plant Material: You can substitute juice, infusions, or decoctions for the water in the formulas above. Making syrups with fruit juice is quite common in our handwritten sources but as this is getting long, I will devote another post to cordials and liqueurs.

When I work with fresh aromatics, I worry about simmering away all the volatile ingredients by first decocting and then making a syrup. Even Culpeper had a bit of a cheat for making syrups with aromatic flowers. It is not best to boyl any syrup made of infusions, but by adding the double weight of Sugar (viz. two pound of Sugar to each pint of Infusion) melt it over a fire only. I am not a sweet person so that’s a bit much for me.

The process I use is like the one mentioned in the previous post for working with ginger root.

1. Put your fresh plant material in a heat-proof container that has an airtight lid.
2. Pour boiling water over it, cover it, and keep it warm overnight. I have a really nice thermos that will stay warm for a few days if I wrap it in a towel. You can put it in a water bath or whatever works for you.
3. The next day you can strain your infusion through butter muslin and use the infusion to make a rich simple syrup according to the directions above.
4. Store in an air-tight bottle. If you have cooked it to the proper stage it should be shelf-stable and not need to be refrigerated.

Dried Plant Material: You can pour syrup over spices and dried herbs and make an infusion with the syrup. The reason you can’t do this with fresh plant material is that the syrup will pull the liquid into your syrup, and it is then in danger of fermenting. I will end this by walking you through the process of making my rose-vanilla syrup.

1. Slice a vanilla bean in half and scrape the bean into a jar with a tight-fitting lid with one cup of dried rose petals. Pop the pod in there too.
2. Make a lean simple syrup according to the directions above.
3. Pour the hot syrup into the jar with the vanilla and rose and cover it tightly.
4. Let it sit for at least a week before straining it into a non-reactive container that has an airtight lid. If you have cooked it to the proper stage, it should be shelf-stable and not need to be refrigerated.

Syrups continue to be one of the easiest and most adaptable ways to prepare herbal remedies, making them a timeless essential in both home and professional herbal practices. Whether used as a cough syrup or a digestive tonic, they provide an accessible method of incorporating the benefits of herbs into daily life thanks to their long shelf life and pleasant taste.

I hope this post inspires you to try making your own herbal syrups at home? Whether you’re preparing a soothing blend for cold season or a tasty digestive tonic, syrups are so versatile. Share your creations in the comments, or reach out if you have questions about customizing your recipes. If you’re interested in learning more about traditional herbal remedies, be sure to explore the rest of the blog for additional guides and tips.

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References

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Aegineta, Paulus. Medical Compendium in Seven Books. Translated by Adams, Francis. 1847 Translation. Vol. I. London, England: Sydenham Soc., 600. 178.

Culpeper, Nicholas. Pharmacopoeia Londinensis: A Physicall Directory, or, A Translation of the London Dispensatory Made by the Colledge of Physicians in London. London, England: Printed for Peter Cole and are to be sold at his shop, 1649. https://archive.org/details/b30336879_0001.

Galen, and Robert Montraville Green. A Translation of Galen’s Hygiene: (De Sanitate Tuenda). Thomas, 1951.165.

Hippocratic Corpus. On Regimen in Acute Disease. Translated by Adams, Francis, 400AD. http://classics.mit.edu//Hippocrates/acutedis.html.

Norri, Juhani. Dictionary of Medical Vocabulary in English, 1375–1550: Body Parts, Sicknesses, Instruments, and Medicinal Preparations. Routledge, 2016.