After a couple of weeks of us both suffering shitty recurring colds, I prepared this herbal tincture as a treatment. As it usually does, it worked rather well, so I thought I would share the recipe. This is a variation on the old Scottish standard cold and flu treatment, of whisky, sugar and hot water. My extra ingredient is fresh root ginger and quite a lot of it. Ginger is hot stuff, but it doesn't infuse well in water without vigorous boiling and even then not so well. Hot milk is much better for drawing out the essential oils, but that's another recipe (see ginger milk tea if you like the sound of milk and ginger together). The whisky seems to help a little in drawing out the spicy taste. I suspect the active ingredients in ginger really are oils, which don't dissolve well in water. So use a lot and if you like, you can even nibble on the slices of ginger after you've drunk the toddy. They're really quite nice: a bit like the pickled ginger you get with sushi.
So here's the recipe.... the amounts are for one hot toddy, assuming it's only one person who's ill. If there are more invalids in the house, or someone just fancies a wee shine, then scale up accordingly.
Peel the ginger and shave it into slices with a very sharp knife. I generally do this across the grain (ginger has an obvious grain; all the fibres in the root go one way) in the belief that I'm cutting through various little vessels and thus creating more opportunity for the oils to escape into the liquid. I have absolutely no scientific evidence to back this up. But make sure the slices are very thin and you'll find that you're toddy has a lovely warming ginger taste to it.
Put the ginger in a large mug, add the whisky and sugar, then top up with boiling water and stir. Sip your drink slowly and inhale the vapours and you'll feel great.