How To Make Garlic Syrup

This garlic syrup recipe was originally submitted by an MSB reader many years ago. It combines fresh garlic, honey, apple cider vinegar, and water into a traditional homemade preparation.

Editor’s Note: This recipe was submitted by an MSB reader many years ago as a traditional homemade garlic-and-honey preparation. It is being preserved here for its historical and practical interest. It should not be used to diagnose or treat pneumonia, tuberculosis, serious infections, wounds, or other medical conditions. This recipe has not been tested as a shelf-stable food-preservation method, so do not rely on the original contributor’s long-term storage experience as evidence of safety. Honey should never be given to children under 12 months.

Here’s how to make garlic syrup:

Submitted by ‘Halfkin’

My first batch was in 1978.
I have made it the same way for over Thirty years and it has not failed me.

I altered the original recipe from day one, replacing sugar with honey.

I got up to the point that I used to make ten gallons at a time from twenty-five pounds of garlic.

It is not inexpensive, however, I feel it is more valuable than gold.

It is really, really, sticky to make, even before the honey is added. The garlic oil attaches to everything! And the entire house will reek on the day you grind the garlic. Or open the bucket later….Gotta Love It!

Garlic Syrup Recipe

Food-safety note: This is not a tested canning or shelf-stable preservation recipe. Keep homemade garlic syrup refrigerated. Because a validated storage life for this particular recipe has not been established, make small batches rather than storing it for extended periods.

Break apart the garlic cloves. Remove loose peels, but don’t sweat the ones that cling.

Run them through a meat mincer/grinder. I use a hand crank one.

A blender might work, but that is all you will ever use it for. I have destroyed juicers, don’t go there. A garlic press is not enough. MINCE or GRIND the Garlic.

Add Equal amounts of water and vinegar. Enough to cover the garlic. Use a glass container preferably, or plastic if you have to, but Never metal to soak the garlic.

MSB Food-Safety Note: The water and vinegar amounts above are part of the contributor’s original recipe. They have not been tested as a shelf-stable preservation formula. Do not treat this as a canning recipe.

I soak the mixture at least overnight and sometimes allow it to steep much longer. I call this stage “garlic broth” (unstrained).

MSB Note: Because this is not a tested shelf-stable preservation recipe, I would keep the mixture refrigerated throughout this stage rather than relying on room-temperature storage.

The pulp is strained through layers of cheesecloth or linen or cotton and a sieve. The resulting product is the strained broth.

For every cup of strained garlic broth, add 1½ cups of honey.

Example:

1 lb of garlic
2 cups of water
2 cups of vinegar
equals 4 – 1/2 cups of broth.

You actually get more liquid back because of the oil in the garlic that comes out.

Add one and a half times as much honey as broth.
So – 4.5 cups of broth, multiplied by 1.5 times the amount of honey, equals = 6.75, (6 and 3/4 cups), of honey.

Warm the honey on low heat and add it to the broth. Never heat the Garlic.

Stir thoroughly, transfer to a clean container, and keep refrigerated.