Making elderberry syrup at home? Don’t make this mistake

Here’s the truth no one tells you and what to do instead

It’s elderberry season here in Highland Perthshire, and many people are foraging berries to make syrup for winter immunity boost. Elderberry syrup is one of the most popular home remedies, but there’s a serious flaw in the way it’s usually prepared.

Most recipes instruct you to boil elderberries with sugar until the mixture thickens into a syrup. The problem? High heat destroys many of elderberry’s most potent medicinal compounds.

The toxicity question

Yes, raw elderberries can upset the stomach if eaten in large quantities. Unripe berries and leaves contain sambunigrin, and the seeds contain prunasin. However, ripe berries are safe when handled correctly: the seeds are not usually crushed in home extraction, and sambunigrin is absent from ripe fruit (Cedar Mountain Herb School).

The real danger isn’t toxicity: it’s the loss of medicine through overheating.

What heat does to Elderberries

Elderberries contain valuable nutrients and compounds such as magnesium, potassium, niacin, viburnic and shikimic acids, as well as antioxidants like anthocyanins and flavonoids. While minerals and some acids withstand cooking, the heat-sensitive Vitamin C, antioxidants and antiviral compounds degrade above 90°C.

• Just 10 minutes in a hot water bath reduces anthocyanins by up to 10%.
• The typical syrup recipes online call for boiling berries at over 100°C for much longer, destroying even more of their medicinal power.
• To make matters worse, these recipes often add refined sugar, which is not only unnecessary but can also undermine immune health.
• As herbalist Suzanne Tabert of Cedar Mountain Herb School puts it: “Just because a zillion people copy and paste a recipe doesn’t mean the info is golden.” (Source)

A better way: Elderberry Rob and Elderberry Tincture

If you are keen to make something yourself, instead of boiling elderberries into a sugar syrup, consider making a traditional rob, which is a thickened juice that can be made without refined sugar. One excellent method is shared by The Handmade Apothecary:

"Strip berries from their steams, wash in cool water, place in a saucepan with a dash of water. Cover and very gently simmer for 30mins. Once you have strained your decoction, return it to the pan and keep simmering, uncovered, your potion gently in the pan on a very, very low heat. Once it has reduced by about half, your rob is finished. Pour the liquid into sterilised wide mouthed jars (it can go quite solid like jam when cool and is tricky to get out of bottles) or freeze into ice-cube trays."

This approach preserves more of elderberry’s beneficial compounds while avoiding the pitfalls of excess sugar.

If you’d rather skip the fuss and keep every drop of the medicine intact, my Elderberry Tincture is ready for you: potent, pure and shelf-stable for 5 years +

The takeaway

• Pick only ripe berries: avoid unripe (green) berries and leaves.
• Skip the long boil: heat degrades the very medicine you’re after.
• Avoid refined sugar: choose natural alternatives like honey or fruit juice reductions.
• Try a rob instead of syrup: a more traditional preparation.
• Get a tincture to keep every drop of the medicine intact.

Elderberries are a gift of the season. Don’t waste their power by following internet recipes that cook away their benefits.