A Fiery Tonic for Cold Days: Make Your Own Fire Cider
As we deepen into the winter months, we want to share a recipe that can bring warmth and comfort throughout the darker times of the year. This tonic helps to strengthen the immune system and offers steady support when the body and spirit most need it. Fire Ciders are such a wonderful gift, a bridge between food and medicine, just as Rosemary Gladstar (who created the recipe in the 80’s) intended.
Fire Cider is a traditional herbal tonic made with a combination of spicy, pungent, and nourishing ingredients steeped in raw apple cider vinegar. It is known for its bold, tangy flavor with a warming, slightly sweet finish. Typically, a Fire Cider includes ingredients such as ginger, garlic, horseradish, onions, cayenne pepper, and sometimes additional herbs or berries for extra
You can choose the plants that best support your unique needs, making it both personal and practical.
For example, if you tend to catch coughs and colds, a Fire Cider with thyme, sage, garlic, and onion would be a wonderful companion to your meals and a natural way to soothe those familiar symptoms.
If the cold months leave you feeling sluggish or unmotivated, you may benefit from a more fiery blend that warms the blood and enlivens the spirit, using plants such as chili, cinnamon and cayenne.
For those who struggle with congestion or sinus blockages, horseradish is a powerful addition to help clear the airways and dry the dampness.
That is the true beauty of Fire Cider: you can adapt it to your constitution and your needs. It can nourish your health while pleasing your palate.
You can use it to dress a salad, stir a spoonful into hot water with lemon, or simply take a small daily shot if you are one of those devoted apple cider vinegar takers.
Whichever way you choose to enjoy it, Fire Cider is a simple yet profound expression of integrative, kitchen-based medicine, a daily act of nourishment, crafted with love and care.
The Origins of Fire Cider
Fire Cider, the spicy, tangy, and sweet apple cider vinegar tonic loved by herbalists and home healers, has deep roots in modern herbal tradition. It was first created in the early 1980s by Rosemary Gladstar, one of the most influential figures in American herbalism, while she was teaching at the California School of Herbal Studies in Forestville, California.
At that time, Rosemary was pioneering a return to herbalism as food, showing her students that medicine did not have to come only in capsules or tinctures but could live right in the kitchen. In her classes she encouraged everyone to blend healing herbs into soups, teas, vinegars, and tonics. Out of this spirit of experimentation came one of her most enduring recipes: Fire Cider.
A Recipe for Wellness and Community
Rosemary’s original Fire Cider was a lively infusion of freshly grated horseradish, onion, garlic, and ginger, steeped in raw apple cider vinegar and sweetened with honey. It was meant to be both a potent medicine and a delicious food, a daily tonic to warm the body, strengthen immunity, and keep colds at bay.
Over the years Rosemary freely shared the recipe with her students and with the wider herbal community. Fire Cider spread quickly, made and adapted by countless herbalists across the country. It became a cornerstone of contemporary folk herbalism, a recipe that truly belonged to everyone.
Fire Cider: A Tradition, Not a Trademark
Many years later, when a company attempted to trademark the name Fire Cider, the herbal community joined together to protect its origins. In 2019 a federal court ruled that Fire Cider is a generic term and cannot be owned by any single company. The decision preserved not only a beloved recipe but also an important principle: traditional herbal knowledge is community wisdom and not corporate property.
Today Fire Cider continues to be made and enjoyed in kitchens around the world. It stands as a living symbol of Rosemary Gladstar’s enduring legacy and her belief that the best medicine begins with the simple and generous act of sharing.
Our Heart-Warming Fire Cider Recipe
This adaptation of Rosemary Gladstar’s original Fire Cider recipe celebrates the same fiery warmth and generous heart that made the original so beloved. It brings together the invigorating power of ginger and garlic with the sweetness of rose hips and the strength of hawthorn berries. Together, they create a tonic that nourishes the heart, enlivens the circulation, and brings comfort through the colder seasons.
Ingredients
½ cup freshly grated ginger root (Zingiber officinale)
¼ cup chopped garlic (Allium sativum)
¼ cup rose hips (Rosa canina), scored or deseeded and cut into small pieces
¼ cup hawthorn berries (Crataegus monogyna), lightly crushed
Cayenne pepper, fresh or dried, to taste (Capsicum frutescens)
Raw apple cider vinegar, enough to cover the herbs by 3 to 4 inches
Honey, to taste
Instructions
Place all herbs and berries in a clean glass jar.
Pour in enough raw apple cider vinegar to cover the ingredients by three to four inches.
Seal the jar tightly.
Let the jar sit in a warm place for three to four weeks. Shake it daily to encourage the infusion and mix the ingredients well.
After the maceration period, strain out the herbs and berries, reserving the liquid.
Warm the honey slightly so it will blend easily, then add it to the infused vinegar to taste.
Your Fire Cider should be bright, spicy, and just a little sweet.
Bottle, label, and store in a cool place or refrigerator. It will keep well for several months.
To Use
Take a teaspoon to a tablespoon daily as a warming tonic.
Sip it from a small cup or mix it into warm water or tea.
It may also be taken at the first sign of a cold or when you feel in need of a gentle, heart-lifting boost.
With GratitudeThe School of Shamanic Herbalism gives thanks to Rosemary Gladstar and her pioneering and passionate spirit that enlivened and seeded herbal knowledge far and wide. Her generosity continues to inspire herbalists everywhere to learn, create, and share from the heart.
If you would like to learn more about herbalism, medicine making and shamanic wisdom, join our Shamanic Herbalism Apprenticeship.