# From "The Hidden History of Beverages" by Alexander Lukashev

## 37. Chest Blend with Licorice and Plantain

Part Two (recipes), chapter 37 · For the cold season
Page: https://herbalmind.bar/recipes/licorice-plantain-chest-blend/

expectorant and demulcent · taste: sweet even before the honey, and unmistakably of licorice; soft and coating · preparation time: 17 minutes

Plants:
- licorice root (Glycyrrhiza glabra L.) — European Medicines Agency monograph EMA/HMPC/108399/2024 Rev. 1: traditional use for digestive symptoms including burning sensation and dyspepsia, and as an expectorant in cough associated with a cold
- ribwort plantain leaf (Plantago lanceolata L.) — European Medicines Agency monograph EMA/HMPC/887979/2022 Rev. 1: traditional use for irritation of the mouth and throat with dry cough, for cough associated with a cold, and for minor inflammation of the skin

From “Before You Begin,” the book’s safety page (free: https://herbalmind.bar/before-you-begin/):
- Six recipes are for the cold season and for feeling unwell. They are drunk for a few days and then stopped.
- Licorice, Chapter 37, must not be combined with diuretics, cardiac glycosides, corticosteroids or stimulant laxatives, including the buckthorn bark of Chapter 40, and calls for caution alongside medicines the liver breaks down with the enzyme CYP3A4.
- Several have a short time frame: if a cough has not cleared within a week, licorice is stopped and a doctor seen, and with willow a doctor is seen if a headache lasts more than a day or a fever more than three.
- Pregnancy: Twenty-six of the twenty-eight recipes here are restricted in pregnancy — most because safety has not been established rather than because harm has been shown, but the answer is the same either way. The two that carry no restriction are the rosehip brew of Chapter 26 and the sea buckthorn of Chapter 28, both of them fruits eaten as food across Europe.

The recipe itself — amounts and preparation, who should not drink it, how much and for how long — is in chapter 37 of the book: https://books.apple.com/book/id6756108723

---

These are chapter cards — what each chapter covers, with a few short answers and the book’s free pages — not the chapters themselves.
Apple Books, with a free sample: https://books.apple.com/book/id6756108723
Other stores: https://books2read.com/u/mqlAwO