Cough drops are surprisingly easy to make at home. The nice thing is you can customize them to what you like. These are made with ginger, cinnamon and cloves, but you could substitute any flavors you like. You could even just leave them honey and lemon. 

The first batch of cough drops I made I followed the instructions I found on Pinterest. Those instructions just had you drop the syrup by teaspoons full onto wax paper. Wow! Was that messy!  Not only did I have little dribbles of syrup all over the place, but my teaspoon drops ran into wild shapes. These didn’t look like any cough drops I had ever seen!  

So after a google search I discovered the powdered sugar molds. This was a game changer. The case for my candy thermometer was about the size of a traditional round cough drop so that worked perfectly, but any small shape should work. The amazing thing about powdered sugar was that even when you might have dripped outside of the depression the syrup ran right back into it like magic. The cough drops cool pretty quickly and you can just stir them in the powdered sugar on the pan to coat. Then just put the powdered sugar back in your bag and use it the next time.

Ingredients:
1 cup of sugar
½ cup of water
1 TBSP lemon juice
1 TBSP Honey
½ tsp ginger
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp cloves
Powdered sugar 
Candy thermometer (optional)

Instructions:

1. Place all ingredients into a small pan and stir. Bring to a simmer on medium heat. 
2. Cook for 15-20 minutes until you reach the hard crack stage (300 degrees) and candy is thick and syrupy.
3. Spread powdered sugar on a baking sheet about a quarter inch thick. Make small impressions in the powdered sugar. 
4. Pour the syrup into the depressions to make your cough drops. 
5. Let cool completely. This should only take a few minutes. 
6. Shake the cough drops through the powdered sugar and then sift them out. 
7. Wrap individual cough drops in wax paper so they do not stick together.