A Spoon Full of Sugar

Over the summer, we've been playing around with different kinds of herbal preparations. That's always just fun to do - especially during a summer like this one, where the weather produced several cuttings of everything. One purpose was to give some of these herbs to our brother. He must have zero alcohol, and isn't the type to drink tea. Now I know all about the amount of alcohol in a tincture being equal to that of a ripe banana... heck, we told that to our customers at the shop 15 years ago! But when someone truly has a problem and cologne might set them off, who really wants to take that chance?

So syrup was a brief fascination, but it rapidly turned to hard candy! Now this is fun!

We currently have 4 of them, all up on the shopping cart.

The first is Elderberry Bits. We picked fresh, plump elderberries and added ginger and lemon. The resulting candies are delicious and both our brother and my college girl have handy, tasty elderberry available.

Next is Herbalicious. This one is crammed with herbal goodness. We added mint, holy basil, elderberry, rose geranium, lemon verbena, orange, lemon, thyme, ginger, cardamom, and rosemary. It is surprisingly wonderful, and the name of the line just popped into our heads.

Then Lemon Balm Bombe. Luscious lemon balm, along with lemon juice, passionflower, and a few blueberries from the garden. Tulsi Twist is a combination of Tulsi (holy basil) with goji berries and a kiss of peppermint. Exquisite.

You might want to give these delightful hard candies a try. They are such a sweet and convenient way to keep your favorite herbs handy - wherever you are!