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

## 42. Willow Bark with Ginger and Mint

Part Two (recipes), chapter 42 · For the cold season
Page: https://herbalmind.bar/recipes/willow-bark-ginger-mint/

traditional cold drink · taste: bitter bark under ginger heat and mint · preparation time: 20 minutes

Plants:
- ginger rhizome (Zingiber officinale Roscoe) — European Medicines Agency monograph EMA/HMPC/885789/2022 Rev. 1: well-established use for the prevention of nausea and vomiting in motion sickness; traditional use for motion sickness, mild spasmodic gastrointestinal complaints, temporary loss of appetite, minor joint pain and symptoms of the common cold — all for the powdered root or tinctures; the monograph has no tea
- peppermint leaf (Mentha × piperita L.) — European Medicines Agency monograph EMA/HMPC/572705/2014 Rev. 1: traditional use for digestive disorders such as dyspepsia and flatulence
- willow bark (Salix spp.) — European Medicines Agency monograph EMA/HMPC/80630/2016: well-established use for short-term treatment of low back pain; traditional use for minor joint pain, fever in the common cold and headache

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.
- Willow bark, Chapters 41 and 42, must not be combined with aspirin, ibuprofen or other NSAIDs, or with anticoagulants — someone taking a painkiller and then brewing willow bark tea for the same headache is doubling a dose they do not know they are taking.
- 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 42 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