What's In My Apothecary: Oxymels
Connecting our heart with our guts and recipes for my Heart Immunity Oxymel and an herbal mocktail (or cocktail!)
Housekeeping and a Love Note
Winter is coming, but the astrology and our herbal allies help us stay ready. In this post, I’ll share a bit about the astrology of the month before getting into one of my favorite fall/winter staples, oxymels. I’ve also got a quick little love note for you because it’s Friday, Venus’s day. As a treat for paid subscribers, I’m sharing the recipes for my Heart Immunity Oxymel and Hot Tonic (an oxymel hot toddy), which feature our good friend, Hawthorn.
Enjoy!
Love Note #1
This Sunday, we have a Full Moon in Taurus on the same day Mercury goes direct in Scorpio and the Sun moves into Sagittarius. This is grown and sexy energy. The Full Moon wants us to indulge, Mercury wants us to speak our hearts’ desires with our chests, and the Sun wants us to be bold and honest. It’s a gentle reminder that closed mouths don’t get fed. Say what you mean and mean what you say when it comes to your desires this weekend. You just might get what you ask for.
Sidereal Cosmic Forecast: December 2024
This month started with a New Moon in Scorpio and ends with a New (Black) Moon in Sagittarius. Black Moons, the second new moon in a single calendar month, occur about every 29 months, so they’re not exactly rare, but also not very frequent. I love how these new moons are enveloping the transits of this month. It feels like a well-crafted basket holding the watery astrology of December. As I mentioned to a friend, I wouldn’t say that December is more chill than the last couple of months, but there’s definitely more space for us to breathe and be held by the astrology. Thank the Universe for this mini-reprieve because ba-BY, the cosmos need to ease up a bit!
Mars stations retrograde in Cancer
On Friday, December 6 (EST), Mars began its 2-month retrograde journey through Cancer. This particular transit wants us to investigate our heart’s desires so we can align ourselves with them. Understanding our desires and motives helps us understand our instincts, which in turn, helps us strengthen and build our discernment skills. When we understand why we want certain things or feel a certain way about something, we get a better feel for what’s ours to work through and what isn’t.
Over the last few posts, we’ve focused on discernment by applying fire and water’s heart-centered intuitive guidance to help us spot ops within movements and recognize fascist rhetoric. The New Moons and Mars retrograde in Cancer create a container for us to dive deeper into these themes. Cancer’s domain includes the stomach and digestive system, which are connected to our brain by a two-way network called the gut-brain axis. Our entire gut system is lined with over 100 million nerve cells that send signals back and forth between our brain and gut, and irritation in the gut can trigger mood changes. As Mars’s irritating, dry heat moves through Cancer, we can soothe and support our digestive system with herbal remedies like oxymels.
Oxymels: Nature’s Sweet and Sour “Sauce”
Sour/pungent flavors are my favorite and sweets are a close second. The zing of a splash of lime in my caldo or the tang of vinegar in a good hot sauce really brightens my mood, and I love incorporating more sour flavors during the winter months. I’ve noticed that winter’s cold, moist energy tends to slow my digestion, so incorporating more sour flavors adds a little fuel to the fire in my belly. One of my favorite ways to do this is by adding oxymels to my daily tea.
Oxymels are a popular herbal honey that has been around for ages and different versions can be found in many different cultures. Whenever I had even the slightest tickle in my throat, my Caribbean grandmother and mother would make me take oxymels of apple cider vinegar (ACV), lemon juice, honey, and a garlic clove. One of the most popular oxymels amongst the western herbalism community is fire cider. It’s so popular, that someone tried to trademark it, which is WILD given how old and widespread the remedy is. Greed knows no limits, I guess! Luckily, their trademark was unsuccessful, so we can continue making fire ciders and oxymels in peace.
Making Oxymels
The easiest way to make an oxymel is by a simple infusion. Fill a mason jar about 1/4 of the way with herbs that are de-stemmed and roughly cut up. Cutting the herbs creates more surface area for the vinegar and honey to extract their medicine. Fill the jar with 1 part ACV and 1 part honey, leaving about an inch from the very top. If you’re using a jar with a metal lid, I recommend putting a square of wax paper over the top of the jar before screwing on the lid to prevent rusting. Let your jar sit in a cool, dry place away from the sun for 2 - 4 weeks, then strain. Shake the jar daily, but it’s okay if you miss a day or two. When I make oxymels for myself, I usually use the new or full moons, depending on the kind of energy I want to work with.
I co-run a mutual aid apothecary in DC and for the past couple of years, we’ve hosted a community Fire Cider workshop in October and supplied all the materials to attendees. Fire cider wants to be made in community and peals of laughter that ring out in the space every time we host this workshop prove it. I made this Sorrel fire cider last year as a nod to my heritage and because Sorrel is just that gyal.
I like to start making oxymels for myself in September/October so I can have them ready for the transition to fall and winter. I made two immune support oxymels this year, but my favorite was my Heart Immunity Oxymel, which includes Hawthorn berries. If you’re using tough berries like Hawthorn or Juniper, they’ll need to be processed a bit before making an infusion, but the extra effort is so worth it. I recently took a cocktail-making class with The Cocktail Snob and it inspired me to create this recipe for a Hot Tonic that can be a mock- or cocktail, depending on your mood!
Heart Immunity Oxymel for Hot Tonics
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