How-To Guide: Making Spring Violet Oxymel
- Grace Krupkowski
- May 5
- 6 min read
Oxymel is an herbal extraction made with apple cider vinegar and honey. What makes it so tantalizing is the combination of flavors - sweet, sour, and the imprint of an herb’s taste profile to create a delicious experience. An oxymel is medicinal as the herbal components get extracted into the apple cider vinegar menstruum. The addition of honey helps to preserve the herbal constituents along with the apple cider vinegar. Both of those ingredients offer their own list of benefits which we will explore further in this article.
My favorite herb to make oxymel with is the spring violet or Viola sororia. Commonly named the spring blue violet, this wild herb appears in late April to early May in the Northeast. It appears to emerge alongside Dandelion. Both compliment one another color-wise (purple & yellow are complimentary colors) aiding in the attraction of local pollinators. They also compliment one another in their actions on the body. Both Dandelion and Violet are packed with vitamins, minerals, beneficial polysaccharides, lymphatic agents, and anti-inflammatory properties to name a few. Violet also synergizes well with bugleweed, nettle, chickweed, and cleavers.
From left to right: bugleweed, nettle, chickweed, and cleavers
Benefits of Viola sororia
Many remedies can be prepared with this wild weed. From oxymel to syrups, tea infusions, oil infusions and salves this plant has a variety of applications! Energetically, this plant is cooling and moistening helping to balance out dry inflamed conditions and hot/ dry constitutions. It has an affinity for the lungs, liver, gastrointestinal tract, kidneys, and skin tissue. Herbal actions wise it is anti-inflammatory, demulcent, lymphatic, immune supporting, nutritive, expectorant, nervine, and alterative. As an oxymel the vinegar helps to draw out the nutritive components, making it a wonderful tonic for the liver, gastrointestinal tract, blood and lymph. The raw honey helps draw out the moistening agents like the polysaccharides. The combination of vinegar with violet's alterative (blood cleansing) properties helps rejuvenate liver and gallbladder function. This is significantly helpful during the spring transition out of winter, the phase that governs the liver and gallbladder as well as when our body craves the sour taste. This oxymel can be taken daily to ignite vitality.
Making An Oxymel: Ingredients and Materials
To begin making an oxymel, you first want to gather all the necessary ingredients and materials. You will need:
A mason jar: any size will do as you can scale the ingredients up or down depending on what you have access to
Apple Cider Vinegar: a brand that is organic and still contains the "mother" is recommended. The mother holds all the beneficial bacteria necessary for supporting a healthy microbiome, supports healthy liver function, and improves the quality of the vinegar overall.
Raw Honey: unprocessed, organic, raw honey is best for herbal preparations and ingestion overall as it has not been heated. When honey is heated, much of its medicinal value diminishes.
Violets!: freshly foraged spring violets can be found growing amongst other wild spring herbs in most bioregions. You want to properly identify this herb before foraging it. You will find identifiable features and foraging guidelines laid out below.
Violet Identification and Foraging Guidelines
Violets are very common and often emerge in clumps of heart shaped unfurling leaves eventually yielding multiple stems with an individual flower to each. They are quite delicate and very ephemeral. Violet will flower for a few weeks with the leaves eventually dying back into summer.
To forage this herb, simply pinch the flowers where they meet the stem. This plant is quite pervasive, but be mindful of its benefit to the local ecology as a pollinator and don't take more than you need! The leaf is also medicinal and can be collected along with the flower for an oxymel. The plant typically does not need to be washed or pre processed in any way. It is always recommended to forage away from polluted areas (away from roadsides, trails with frequent exposure to dogs, and away from power lines). It is recommended to add the violet flowers into a preparation shortly after harvesting, however, they can stay relatively fresh in the fridge for 2-3 days, then quickly will start to wilt. For a half cup of oxymel, you will want to forage at least a handful of flowers.
Preparing Your Oxymel: A Folk Remedy
Oxymel is truly considered a folk remedy, meaning it can be prepared without having to perform any measurements to obtain medicinal qualities. There are also many ways in which it can be prepared:
Combine herbs and vinegar, let infuse for 4-6 weeks, strain herb and combine with 1 part honey, enjoy!
Combine herbs with vinegar AND honey, let infuse for 4-6 weeks, strain herbs, enjoy!
Combine herbs with vinegar, combine herbs and honey, let infuse separately, strain from both menstruums, combine, enjoy!
You can also collect a handful of herbs, eyeballing about 1/4-1/2 cup, add them to your jar and pour the vinegar menstruum over and include as much honey as desired. A true folk method! It is a good idea to fill your jar 3/4 of the way with vinegar and then add desired amount of honey, usually a few tablespoons helps balance out the sourness of the vinegar.
If you are eager to be precise, when formulating volume based folk preparations, you may want to measure the total volume of your herbs. This requires harvesting a lot of the herb which is subjective, but you do want enough so that you can tightly pack it down into a measuring cup. Once you have measured a cup of your herb, add to jar and pour 1 part vinegar (1 cup) into the jar. This is a 1:1 ratio by volume. For making a honey infusion (refer to bullet point 3). You want to perform the exact same process. Once both extractions are ready after 4-6 weeks, strain the herbs from their menstruum and combine to form your oxymel! Please note, you will want to keep your honey infusion in the fridge while it is infusing! This is needed to prevent mold and bacterial growth.
Watching Violet Oxymel Transform!
As your violet oxymel extraction transforms, the color becomes a gorgeous magenta, emulating the pigment of the violet flowers themselves. This pigment does not stick around that long and will often diminish to a lighter pink though still beautiful.
How To Use Your Oxymel
Once you strain your oxymel, it is ready for ingestion. A dose of 1/2 teaspoon (2 ml) 1 to 2 times per day is suggested. You can add this dose to a glass of water, juice or sipped directly. A favorite way to enjoy violet oxymel is adding it to herbal mocktails! A combination of soda water, 2-4 ml violet oxymel, and herbal syrup makes for a lovely spring or summer beverage. Here is a link an herbal syrup recipe.
Enjoying Violets Year Round
Violet oxymel is a perfect way to enjoy the benefits of this ephemeral flower year round. The preservation of this medicinal preparation can be kept for up to a year. No need to refrigerate, just keep in a place away from sunlight and super hot temperatures. The oxymel recipe can be applied to almost all herbs fresh or dried.
Oxymels are powerful spring tonics that awaken and enliven the body. This practice is a wonderful folk herbal experience to implement during this spring transitional time of year. We hope you can experience this hands-on in your own kitchen at home!
Learn More About Plants
Join in-person learning opportunities: Learn More
Receive personalized Herbal Support: Herbal Wellness Consultations
Join the mailing list to stay up to date on my future offerings. Click the button below!
About the Author
This article is written by Grace Krupkowski, Herbalist and Educator
Grace's innate and learned knowledge fosters a connection across many herbal traditions. In 2015 she began an exploration into the world of herbalism and plant connection which has since blossomed into a lifelong passion. Since 2020, Grace has served as an educator teaching courses in person and online. Grace also offers one on one herbal wellness consultations that encompass the whole individual, their ailments, and goals for healing and balancing the body.
Most popular are Grace's courses in plant identification, foraging, and wildcrafting. Many people gravitate towards Grace's unique perspective and personable, enthusiastic demeanor when it comes to connecting with and learning about medicinal wild plants. She has studied with Kenzie Khaliq of Wild Faith Wellness, the Boston School of Herbal Studies, California School of Herbal Studies, and is a graduate of the Family and Community Herbalist program at the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism.
* DISCLAIMER: This blog post does not contain medical/health advice. This information is provided for general informational and educational purposes only.
Comments