• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Seeking Joyful Simplicity

Your best life after 40 - living with purpose and vibrant health. Empowering you with a holistic approach: nourishing foods, herbal remedies, and self-care to reduce overwhelm, manage your weight, and enjoy vibrant health in your 40's, 50's, and beyond.

  • Shop
  • About
  • Simple Food
  • Healing Herbs
  • Health and Wellness
  • Living with Purpose

herb cordials

Making Herb Cordials – Simple Homemade Gifts

8:06 am by Seeking Joyful Simplicity 18 Comments

Make Your Own Herb Cordials. Cordials are fun and easy to make yourself and are great DIY gifts.
Tweet
Share
Share
Pin

Nourishing Herbs. Beautiful Cordials

I have a great suggestion for a simple healthy indulgence. Have you tried making your own herb-infused cordials? Cordials are fun to make, fun to drink, and can be used as gifts for all seasons. Use warming herbs for winter months, cooling herb combinations for summer season, or enjoy anytime!

Until last year, I had only a vague understanding of what cordials were and how they could be enjoyed. Let’s start with a little history…

Herb Cordials – Definition and History

According to Wikipedia; “a cordial is any invigorating and stimulating preparation that is intended strictly for medicinal use.”

That’s a pretty good definition, but it’s not completely accurate. Historically, cordials were used medicinally and produced in apothecaries during the European Renaissance. Over time, cordials evolved into recreational beverages, and led to the development of modern flavored and sweetened liqueurs.

 

 

Make Your Own Herb Cordials. Cordials are fun and easy to make yourself and are great DIY gifts.

 

Creative Cordials

Cordials are blends of herbs, fruit, spices, sweeteners, and alcohol. The combination possibilities are endless! By using different combinations, we can create stimulating and warming cordials to enjoy in the winter, cooling and relaxing cordials for the summer months, and combinations of herbs, fruits and spices to create interesting flavors which are lovely added to tea, beverages, sauces, served over ice cream and used as topping for desserts.

Most cordials are sweetened with sugar, but I suggest trying combinations that include honey, maple syrup, even molasses for added depth of flavor. You can adjust the sweetness according to your taste.

Cordials can be made with fresh or dried ingredients, combined with alcohols such as vodka, brandy, gin and even wine. *If you do not drink alcohol, you can enjoy an herbal syrup added to seltzer or mineral water for a pleasant beverage.

*Non- Alcoholic Cordial Recipe
Ingredients:
Herb of choice
12 tablespoons water
12 tablespoons sugar
Directions:
Bring sugar and water to a boil, add herbs and simmer 8-10 minutes. Strain and bottle.
To use – add about 2 tablespoons (more or less) to 8-ounces of seltzer or mineral water.

Making Herb Cordials – Cordial Combinations

These are suggested recipes, don’t be afraid to get creative and invent your own!

Elderberry and Cinnamon Cordial

 

How to make an elderberry cinnamon cordial

 

Packed full of antioxidants and powerful antiviral medicine, elderberries are excellent for combating cold and flu. Herbalists use alcohol to extract the medicinal properties from the herbs, helping to concentrate the plant’s medicine.

Combined with cinnamon and ginger for flavor and warmth, this cordial is a pleasant way to take our medicine.

  • Elderberries – 1 pint fresh or 1 cup dried
  • 1 pint 80-proof brandy
  • 1 pint Maple Syrup (more or less, depending on desired sweetness)
  • 2-4 cinnamon sticks
  • Fresh ginger – a few slices, depending on your taste
  • Zest of one lemon

Place elderberries in a quart jar with cinnamon, ginger, and lemon zest. Cover with brandy and maple syrup. Allow to infuse for 2 weeks or longer, gently shaking every few days. Strain out the fruit (delicious eaten with ice-cream!) and bottle.

Rosemary, Ginger and Pear Wine

 

How to make herb cordials

 

 

Not a “true” cordial, this recipe makes a nicely flavored wine.  It’s a warming and stimulating combination, especially for the circulatory system. The rosemary provides strong antiviral protection, combined with the anti-inflammatory properties of ginger, making this a pleasant medicinal beverage. It would be lovely added to a tea or used as part of a hot toddy.

  • Rosemary – 2 medium sprigs (roughly 3 inches long) fresh rosemary
  • Ginger – a few slices, depending on your preference
  • 1 Pear, sliced
  • Approximately 1 pint white wine of your choice*

*If you want, you can sweeten the wine with honey added either at the beginning, or after the wine and herbs have infused.

Place all the ingredients into a pint jar and cover with the wine. Allow to infuse at least two weeks. Strain and serve.

 

Hibiscus Roselle and Lemon Balm Cordial

 

Making herb cordials

Hibiscus roselle petals have a tart, fruity flavor, and create a lovely pink color. A flower native to the tropics, hibiscus is cooling and high in antioxidants. I now grow my own and use it in all kinds of fun recipes. you can read more about the benefits of hibiscus here. Combining hibiscus with lemon balm, a member of the mint family, creates a cooling and soothing blend. I recommend vodka for this recipe, to avoid hiding the beautiful red hue from the hibiscus. Sweetened with a *sugar syrup.

  • Hibiscus flowers – 1/2 cup dried
  • Lemon Balm – ½ cup dried
  • Vodka – enough to cover the flowers and lemon balm.

Allow to infuse at least two weeks. When you are ready to bottle, strain the hibiscus and lemon balm, and add the syrup.

*Simple Syrup Instructions

Dissolve 1 cup sugar in 1/2 cup water by heating gently in a saucepan. When you are ready to bottle your cordial, add the cooled syrup to the infused vodka.

Holy Basil Cordial

How about a calming cordial, perfect for relieving stress? Holy Basil, also known as Tulsi, is a deliciously soothing nervine. Not only does Holy Basil help us slow down and relax, it improves the body’s physiology, giving us greater strength and endurance. (Read about the benefits of Holy Basil for stress and adrenal fatigue, and ways you can use it in my post Healing with Herbs – Stress, Overwhelm, and Adrenal Fatigue)

Loosely fill your jar 1/3 full with fresh or dried Holy Basil

Add enough brandy to cover the Holy Basil, stirring thoroughly. After two weeks strain and add 1/2 cup honey (more or less to taste).

Cranberry Apple Cinnamon Cordial

Wouldn’t this be lovely served with a holiday meal?

1 cup Cranberries
2 Apples, skins removed, and sliced
2 sticks Cinnamon
sugar syrup
Vodka to cover fruit

Add the cranberries, apples, and cinnamon to jar and cover with vodka. Let steep for at least a week, then strain out the fruit.

*Sugar Syrup Instructions

Dissolve 1 cup sugar in 1/2 cup water by heating gently in a saucepan. When you are ready to bottle your cordial, add the cooled syrup to the infused vodka. Combining homemade violet syrup with your cordials makes a delightful treat.

Cordial Uses

What are some of the ways we can use cordials? Consumed in fancy little “cordial” glasses, combined with other beverages like teas, mixed drinks, or added to white wines or sparkling water, drizzled over fruits, ice cream, and cakes, used in sauces and marinades, and given as gifts in decorative bottles.

I am enjoying herb-infused cordials, both as an indulgence, and for gifting. I hope you enjoy them too.

~ Michelle

Tweet
Share
Share
Pin

Filed Under: Healing Herbs, Simple Food Tagged With: herb cordials, how to make herb cordials, making cordials

Primary Sidebar

Hello and welcome! Seeking Joyful Simplicity is about creating space in your life for the things that matter most - abundant health, joy, and contentment. With a holistic approach focused on self-reflection, simple foods, and herbal support, I offer a practical approach to living with purpose and vibrant health. Want to learn more? Start here…

Featured Posts

Are you fighting a losing battle against hormones, a slowing metabolism, and difficulty maintaining your weight? 6 things to avoid when you are trying to lose weight after 40. 

6 Things to Avoid When You Are Trying to Lose Weight After 40

Mindfulness and Connection – Silence Behind the Words

Indulge with real food valentine treats. These 9 decadent recipes offer vegan, paleo, gluten and dairy-free choices.

Real Food Valentine Treats – Paleo, Vegan, and Dairy-Free

These homemade sunbutter bites are super easy to make, taste great, and are good for you. With no grains, flour, or baking, they are a delicious treat using sunflower seeds, dates, and coconut oil. They make a great homemade alternative to expensive snack and protein bars.

Homemade Sunbutter Bites – No Baking, No Grains

Blackberries are a sweet summer berry and endlessly versatile. Learning to enjoy seasonal foods, we have found freezing fresh blackberries to be a wonderful way to preserve the freshness of summer to enjoy all year long. Let me share five easy and delicious blackberry recipes including a gluten-free blackberry oat bar, wild berry buckle (coffe-cake like), vanilla lavender blackberry jam, blackberry mead, and blackberry cobbler.

Blackberry Season and Five Easy Recipes

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Herbal Academy Courses

Learn Herbal Medicine

The Craft of Herbal Fermentation Course by Herbal Academy

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Contributor at the Homestead Bloggers Network

Archives

Simple Food

How to stop comfort and stress eating

How to Stop Stress Eating Breaking the Pattern

Not just for pesto and pasta, let’s talk about how to use fresh basil to make lime basil fizz, basil herb butter, basil vinegar, and more.

7 Things to Do With Basil Beyond Pesto

Sweet, delicious honey. Herbal infused honey is a delightful way to enjoy the many health benefits of herbs and raw honey, and is a wonderful way to give herbal medicine to our children. Let me show you how to make herbal infused honey and some of my favorite herbal infused honey combinations for both health and flavor.

How to Make Herbal Infused Honey – Flavorful, Medicinal

The humble garlic offers powerful health benefits including anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, and antiviral properties to combat colds and flu, and much more. Fermenting garlic adds healthy probiotics and offers even greater protective benefits. Making fermented garlic is really simple and here are five easy and delicious recipes for using your homemade, probiotic-rich garlic..

Easy Fermented Garlic and 5 Recipes

See More

Simple Herbs

Insect bites, bee stings, sunburn relief. Only four ingredients and using easy-to-find herbs like plantain and dandelion, you can make your own highly effective, all-natural DIY skin salve

DIY Summer Skin Salve – All Natural Relief for Summer Skin

Warm breezes and sunny days, summer is the time for outdoor activities. But along with the summer fun comes summer skin irritations like sunburn, blisters, insect bites, and the dreaded poison ivy. You can buy over-the-counter products to treat all of these, but you will also be getting the added chemicals and preservatives. Why not take a little time to make your own […]

Roses excel at cooling and soothing hot inflamed skin, and a homemade rose and aloe cooling lotion is a wonderful way to treat skin irritations like acne, rashes, eczema, sunburn, and insect bites.

Make Your Own Rose and Aloe Cooling Lotion and Spray

  All-Natural Rose and Aloe Cooling Lotion and Spray Roses are alluring and beautiful, and despite their delicate appearance, they offer some pretty amazing health benefits. Combining the anti-inflammatory and cooling property of rose petals with soothing aloe, we can create a simple, all-natural rose and aloe cooling lotion. This post contains affiliate links. If you […]

Homemade herbal gifts are a delightful way to share our love for everything herbal. Instead of joining the holiday shopping rush, we can take the time to slow down and enjoy the creative process of making simple gifts for those we love. Homemade herbal gifts for friends and family are a great way to spread love and good health. Enjoy this list of 20 inspiring ideas for the holidays.

Homemade Herbal Gifts – 25 Inspiring Ideas for the Holidays

Homemade herbal gifts are a delightful way to share our love for everything herbal. Instead of joining the holiday shopping rush, we can take the time to slow down and enjoy the creative process of making simple gifts for those we love. Homemade herbal gifts for friends and family are a great way to spread love […]

Sweet, delicious honey. Herbal infused honey is a delightful way to enjoy the many health benefits of herbs and raw honey, and is a wonderful way to give herbal medicine to our children. Let me show you how to make herbal infused honey and some of my favorite herbal infused honey combinations for both health and flavor.

How to Make Herbal Infused Honey – Flavorful, Medicinal

  Sweet, delicious honey. Herbal infused honey is a delightful way to enjoy the many health benefits of herbs and raw honey. Let me show you how easy it is to make herbal infused honey and some of my favorite herbal infused honey combinations for both health and flavor.   The content on this site may contain […]

See More

Before Footer

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest

Footer

Disclaimer and Privacy Policy

The information provided here is not intended to replace professional medical advice and care. It is simply my perspective for you to consider as you make good choices for you and your family’s health. The use of herbs is a time-honored approach to strengthening the body and maintaining health. Herbs, however, can trigger side effects and can interact with other herbs, supplements, or medications. For these reasons, you should take herbs with care. The information provided has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not meant to diagnose any disease, nor is it intended to treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Seek the support and care of a physician and/or complementary care practitioner you trust, and above all, listen to and trust in yourself. Be well! Seeking Joyful Simplicity is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Amazon offers a small commission on products sold through their affiliate links. Each of your purchases through their links supports us at no additional cost to you. For more information - visit our privacy and disclosure page

Copyright © 2023 · Wellness Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in