Hawthorn Rose Cordial

A cordial is a sweetened, distilled liquor. In herbal medicine, cordials are a fun and delicious way of taking your medicine. Also called elixirs, cordials are made by sweetening a tincture with honey or syrup. Because you are going to drink a cordial, it is best to use a tincture that tastes good on its own and is not extremely potent. If you would only take a drop or two of a tincture and drinking a glass of it is going to make you vomit, probably don’t use it for a cordial. Cordials are meant to be sipped in very small amounts such as 1-2 teaspoons. You can also dilute them in sparkling water. Please remember that herbal cordials are actually medicine so not the best thing for a crazy night of drinking. I like to have a teeny, tiny little glass of cordial before bedtime to help me sleep sometimes.

For this particular recipe, we are going to be using hawthorn berries and rose petals as our herbal constituents. For the roses, it really is best to use dried, organic rose petals that are meant to be eaten or made into tea i.e. don’t get gas station roses and make cordial out of them. You can purchase dried rose petals from your local herb shop or in my little online herb shop. 

Hawthorn Benefits

I made this cordial originally for my cousin who is having some issues with his heart. He asked if there was an herb to help strengthen his heart and I immediately said hawthorn. There are several different types of hawthorn, but they are all used pretty interchangeably. Some hawthorn varieties are large shrubs, and some are trees. They all have extremely vicious thorns, however, so be aware if you are out in nature picking them. The thorns offer protection for the plant itself as hawthorn berries, leaves, and flowers offer protection for us. Hawthorn is a heart protector and strengthener physically as well as emotionally. It helps the heart work more efficiently and effectively by pumping more blood through with fewer beats. More blood in the heart also means more oxygen and nutrients can get to the heart tissue to help repair any damage that your heart may have sustained. 

Hawthorn can also help lower the bad cholesterol and studies have shown that it can help repair the heart from mild to moderate heart disease. Heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States so protecting your heart is protecting your life. Now, let’s be real. I’m not saying that having a glass of Hawthorn Rose Cordial every night is going to save your life. This is meant as a once-in-a-while treat. If you are looking to add hawthorn to your daily life to help heal a damaged heart or for heart protection, a dropperful of hawthorn tincture or some hawthorn berry tea is very helpful. Please be mindful that hawthorn can interfere with some heart medications so if you are on serious heart drugs, talk to your doctor. 

Emotionally, hawthorn helps protect your heart during stressful times. It helps us during times when we are feeling vulnerable or fragile. It is a relaxing nervine that can help when you are dealing with grief and heartbreak.

There are many other health benefits of hawthorn, but I won’t go into those here. You can check out my herbal monograph for hawthorn here to get some more information. 

Making Hawthorn Rose Cordial

There are several steps involved in making this cordial, but I promise, it’s worth it! The first thing you need to do is make the hawthorn tincture. This is super easy, but it does take about 4 weeks to make. Tinctures are just herbs infused into alcohol. You will place the dried hawthorn berries and vodka in a jar with a lid. I prefer canning jars but use whatever you have on-hand. No plastic though. Put a label on the jar with the ingredients, the amounts, and the date so you remember what it is. Every day or two, shake the jar up a bit and tell it how much you love it and how you are so excited to be working with it. I like to infuse a lot of love into my tinctures as well as herbs. 

After about 4ish weeks, filter out the herbs and compost them. Pour the finished tincture into a jar and label it. Ta Da! Hawthorn Tincture!!

But wait, there’s more…

Once you have the hawthorn tincture ready to go, you will now infuse the honey with the rose. I like to make a little double broiler by putting a small bowl on a small saucepan filled about halfway with water. Heating the honey this way is just a gentler way of heating it and honey is very susceptible to damage from heat. In the bowl, place about a quarter cup of dried rose petals or a little less than a quarter of an ounce. Completely cover the rose petals with honey. Stir it up a bit and add more honey if you need to. You aren’t trying to make a paste here so add plenty of honey. 

Slowly heat the honey until it is super runny. You never want the honey to go above 100 degrees because it will burn. So, heat it up and then turn the heat off for a bit. Then heat it slowly back up and then turn the heat off again. Do this periodically for about 2ish hours. If you forget to warm the honey back up that’s fine, just don’t forget to turn the heat off. Bees worked really hard to make that honey so treat it with respect! When you have decided that your honey is infused enough with the rose petals, warm it back up one more time. Warm, runny honey is way easier to filter. Pour the honey through a fine mesh sieve to strain out the rose petals and then compost them. Now you have delicious rose infused honey.

Finally! To actually make the cordial, combine the hawthorn tincture and the rose-infused honey. Put it in a cute bottle with a cute label and enjoy! It is best to put a tiny bit (maybe a couple of teaspoons) in a tiny little cordial glass or shot glass and sip it very slowly. You can also add a couple of teaspoons to a glass of sparkling water or soda water and enjoy it that way. Feel free to use it in other botanical cocktails as well.