Honey Chamomile Soda

honey chamomile soda

I think someone should throw me a dang parade for coaxing Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread out of my oven.  With hours dedicated to flour and yeast, I feel like a parade (or a really solid high-five) is a totally reasonable return.  It’s yeast induced hero-status… am I wrong?

Sometimes hero status doesn’t require multiple hours in the kitchen, and flour in your hair.  Thank goodness.

honey chamomile soda

Making a simple syrup is the easiest way for me to feel super clever in the kitchen.  It’s the best way to bring together ultra comforting flavor combinations without making a huge fuss.  Make a big fizzy soda, totally fancy-up happy hour, or add this sweet syrup to hot water with lemon.  It’s bottled delight… and you really don’t have to tell anyone just how easy it is to make.

honey chamomile soda

You probably have some chamomile tea bags in the back of your pantry, right?  Have some honey lying around somewhere?

That’s it!  You’re all the way there!

honey chamomile soda

Tea bags are steeped in simmered water.  Honey is stirred in, and the whole mixture is cooked down to a syrup-y consistency.  With the addition of soda water… it’s totally time for sweet refreshment.

honey chamomile soda

Where hot tea meets bubbly refreshment.  I think this soda is best served with lemon cookies.  Most things are best served with cookies.    These Lemon Meringue Sandwich Cookies are little cloud dreams.

Honey Chamomile Soda

makes 2 cups of syrup

Print this Recipe!

2 1/2 cups water

3 chamomile tea bags

1 cup honey

For serving:

cold club soda

ice cubes

lemon wedges (optional)

Bring water to a simmer in a medium saucepan.  Remove from heat, add tea bags, cover and allow to steep for 10 minutes.  After steeping, remove the tea bags and discard.  Return to heat and add honey.  Stir to melt the honey into the liquid.  Bring to a boil and simmer mixture to reduce to just less than 2 cups of syrup, about 15 minutes.

Pour syrup into a heat-proof jar and allow to cool to room temperature or cold before serving.

To serve, fill a class with ice cubes.  Add about 3 tablespoons of syrup to 1 cup of club soda.  Add more or less syrup to taste.  Add a squeeze of lemon if you’d like.  Enjoy!

Syrup will last for several weeks in an airtight container in the refrigerator.  

All Comments

I Made This

Questions

68 Responses

  1. Made this tonight and it was terrific. I meant to add a splash of lemon juice at the end but forgot. It was great without but I think that a bit of acid would take this over the top. Yum. Thanks for the recipe!

  2. Well now, I’m going to have to try this with a few of the assorted tea bags I have around the house…Bengal Spice comes to mind first! Plus, I want to try it with home grown and dried chocolate mint. Oh the possibilities! Thanks for sharing this one. :)

  3. Hi Joy – I don’t think I’ve ever commented here before which is weird b/c I visit your site all the time. There are a LOT of great cookbooks out right now – I wanted to let you know I ordered yours, because I love your writing so much – it’s so honest and unpretentious! Keep ’em coming! -thanks, Molly

  4. Hello Joy love your blog voice and podcast. You and Tracy rock! Is that your handwriting on the label in these photos? Because if it is- you have lovely handwriting for someone who self professed to know little about fonts! Bought your cookbook and looking forward to doing some joy baking! Thank you.

  5. Joy, you are a genius, a true inspiration and I couldn’t love your blog more… To me, you are hosting one of the best blogs out there. Keep on you totally rock :)

  6. Mmm, interesting. I’ve always been afraid of making syrups because I’m scared of heating sugar but if it’s already in honey form, this sounds good!

    Also, cinnamon pull apart bread–memories!

  7. 1. I love your handwriting!
    2. You are so creative and inspirational
    3. Your honey chamomile syrup sounds divine!

    Thanks Joy!!

  8. Your Cinnamon Pull-Apart Bread is BEYOND hero status. I make it whenever I have someone to impress. It’s seriously the most incredible thing I’ve ever eaten!

  9. Nothing better than a homemade sparkling beverage when you’re thirsty. I bought the iSi soda siphon last summer and used it non-stop until the weather got too cold (I like sparkling drinks when it’s hot).

  10. This sounds so refreshing. What a perfect recipe to have on hand for guests. Can I offer you in some honey chamomile soda? Fancy… Thanks for posting this!

  11. Love this. I just made honey lemon syrup to keep for use in hot tea. Cold season you know. It is so handy. Definitely going to try this one!

  12. This is so great! I’ve been drinking Twinings Camomile Honey Tea pretty much every night and I love the idea of having this syrup on hand for cooler drinks. I must make it soon :)

  13. This looks wonderful! I’m looking forward to making a batch. I appreciate that I can control how much syrup I want to use to make a glass of soda … nice! Thank you.

  14. Oooh… I love doing these sorts of things. The other time I made a lemon-thyme syrup and had that with lime juice. Cinnamon and clove syrup is lovely too. Now I have this to try. Thumbs up!

  15. Thinking of making a self-carbonating version of this much in the same way I make my ginger beer.

    With the honey as food, it should just take the addition of small amount of yeast to the drink and letting it set for about 25 hours. Typically I then put it into the fridge to stop the fermentation so the bottle doesn’t pop and the yeast settles out.

    The amount of alcohol produces is minimal, but the carbonation is usually quite fizzy with very small bubbles. I find it very refreshing. I have also done sparkling fruit juice in the same way.

  16. This is so simple and so refreshing. I’ve never liked chamomile tea much on it’s own but with honey it’s a whole different story. :)

  17. Sounds fabulous. I used to make chamomile tea with dried flowers, add lemon juice and comb it through my hair and sit out in the sun in summer in order to lighten my hair. Only much later did I drink chamomile tea, at night, to aid sleep. Did you know chamomile tea is a diuretic?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Related Posts