I keep coming back to honey.
Partly because it's sweet - divinely so. But mostly because the more I learn about it, the more it feels like the original ritual. Long before capsules and tinctures, there was honey, quietly holding our plants for us.
Herbal honey is honey infused with botanicals, and it's one of the oldest ways people have taken plants. Egyptian physicians, Ayurvedic practitioners and Chinese herbalists all mixed herbs with honey: it keeps botanicals well, softens bitter or strong flavors and makes taking them a pleasure. That's still why we use it.
Honey and Herbs: Four Thousand Years in a Jar
The Egyptians wrote honey into their oldest medical texts. It's one of the most frequent ingredients in the Ebers Papyrus, among the oldest medical writings we have, where it turns up in ointments, in remedies and as the base for herbal preparations. To them, honey transformed whatever it held.
Ayurveda has a beautiful word for this quality: yogavahi, the carrier. In Ayurvedic thought, honey takes whatever you place inside it and carries it deeper into the body than it could travel alone. Practitioners have been infusing honey with herbs for thousands of years, and it's still a cornerstone of the tradition.
Chinese herbalists honey-process some of their herbs, a method called mi zhi, traditionally to soften their intensity and deepen their tonic effect. The Greeks had oxymel and melikraton. And the physicians of the Islamic Golden Age wrote about honey with real scientific precision.
Different continents, different centuries, the same instinct: herbs belong in honey.
That kind of agreement feels like magic to me.
What's Inside Raw Honey
Let me get a little nerdy for a moment.
Raw honey - honey that hasn't been pasteurized or finely filtered - still carries its enzymes and the pollen of the flowers it came from. It's a whole landscape, kept in amber.
Some two hundred compounds. Enzymes the bees add themselves. Natural antimicrobial properties, thanks to very little moisture and a gentle acidity, that help keep whatever you steep inside it. And a slowness I adore: it melts on the tongue, taking its time.
It brings gifts of its own, too: polyphenols, flavonoids and organic acids, plus oligosaccharides that researchers have studied for their prebiotic potential. So when I call honey a vessel, I don't mean an empty one. It adds its own magic to everything it holds.
You could work in a lab for decades and not come up with anything as elegant as what the bees already made.
Why Élixir d'Extase Lives in Honey
When I was dreaming up Élixir d'Extase, honey was the answer from the very start.
I wanted something that feels the way a warm bath feels - slow and unhurried, with a quiet sense that something good is happening. Something you savor with all your senses.
Honey was the only vessel I could imagine for that. It keeps the botanicals we place inside it, and letting it melt on your tongue - the sweetness, the warmth, the layers that unfold - becomes part of the ritual. To me, how something enters your body matters as much as what it holds.
So we chose raw, unfiltered honey from a regenerative farm in Upstate New York, for its richness and depth of flavor. We infuse it with kanna extract and organic shatavari, damiana, rose, vanilla and Ceylon cinnamon. And it's made to be taken slowly: two teaspoons, with attention, like a little ceremony.
A gentle note on safety. Élixir d'Extase contains kanna, which acts on serotonin, so never combine it with SSRIs, SNRIs, MAOIs or any other serotonergic medication. Skip it if you're pregnant or breastfeeding, and if you take any prescription medication, ask your doctor first. And like all honey, it's not for babies under one year old.
A Spoonful at the Threshold of Evening
Honey has outlasted every trend in how we care for ourselves (and there have been many). Every new idea, every leap forward, every moment we were sure we'd outgrown the old ways - and honey stayed. I think it's simply because we've never found a lovelier way to take a plant.
It has always belonged to ceremony, too - to the moments we choose to mark.
To me, Élixir d'Extase is a love letter to that four-thousand-year tradition. A reminder that the sweetest things can also be the most meaningful, and that pleasure and care belong together.
So take it at the threshold of evening, when the day's noise begins to quiet. Let it melt slowly. Close your eyes if that feels right.
Let go. Drop in. Come home to yourself.
xo, Nana 🍯
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is honey used to carry herbs?
Honey keeps botanicals well, softens bitter or strong flavors and makes them a pleasure to take. In Ayurveda it's called yogavahi, a carrier believed to take the qualities of whatever it holds deeper into the body.
What is the difference between raw honey and regular honey?
Raw honey hasn't been pasteurized or finely filtered, so it keeps more of its natural enzymes and pollen. A lot of regular honey is heated and filtered so it stays clear and runny for longer.
How do you take herbal honey?
By the spoonful, on its own or stirred into tea, coffee or yogurt. A serving of Élixir d'Extase is two teaspoons, and the label allows up to four.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This article is for information only and is not medical advice. Our products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.