Horehound
Marrubium vulgare
A woolly, bitter mint used historically in hard candies and cough-shop folklore. Taste is the barrier — intensely bitter. Not a pizza herb.
GROW → HARVEST → EAT → DRY → POWDER → CAPSULE → GUMMY — forms are not equivalent. Food first.
Identity
What it is
A woolly, bitter mint used historically in hard candies and cough-shop folklore. Taste is the barrier — intensely bitter. Not a pizza herb.
From the existing encyclopedia
Home cooks and herbal tea drinkers know Horehound for its signature scent and the way it layers with citrus, honey, or allium. Introduce new ingredients gradually in cooking portions to learn flavor strength before scaling recipes. Complements lemon, lime, or vinegar acidity in dressings and marinades. When substituting dried Horehound for fresh, use about one-third the volume and bloom in fat or hot water before adding acid or dairy.
Edible portions
- leaves in traditional candies/teas — very bitter
Absence of a portion from this list means it is not treated as food here — not that every other part is toxic.
Growing
- Climate. 4–9
- Light. Full sun, dry
- Soil. Lean, well-drained
- Planting. Perennial; can weed in dry soils.
Preparation and culinary uses
- Old-fashioned horehound candy — a confection, not a supplement protocol
Traditional uses
Traditional use Bitter candy and folk cough lozenges — traditional use, not a treatment claim
AAA interpretation Traditional use is not automatically evidence, and evidence is not automatically a shopping recommendation.
Next steps
Sources
- USDA PLANTS Database — taxonomy and range (verify current entries)
- No USDA FoodData Central nutrient profile is attached here. That is not a claim that the plant contains no nutrients.
- State cooperative extension growing guides — verify for your region
- Integrated from the existing aaaLifetime / quantum-biohack encyclopedia corpus (unique text preserved where it was not boilerplate).
Honest incompleteness is preferred to fabricated completeness. If a section is missing, no record for it is attached here — not a claim that the plant lacks that characteristic, and not that it was omitted as a secret.
Internal quality class A. Strong page: distinctive plant facts plus practical growing or kitchen use.