September, you’re a little bizarre and special. Always the start of a new beginning, Septembers past have been the start of new schools, new semesters, new apartments, new jobs, new seasons…new opportunities. This has never been a month of maintaining the same old rhyme and rhythm of steadfast summer. I feel the most open to change and challenges in September, and in my adult life it has never failed to deliver just that. Reflecting back on a September ten years ago, I was living in Galway, Ireland, settling into a new (yet very old) apartment, gushing over my new University syllabi, developing an addiction to earl gray tea and getting a crash course in UK city biking. One of the things I loved most about living in Ireland was their fondness and skill at beverage making (not coffee, alas), but crafty teas and otherwise caffeinated mid-afternoon beverages. Early in September of that year, by some happy accident I stumbled upon a magical form of hot chocolate marshmallowy milky heaven in a cafe not far from my apartment and it routinely became my weekly indulgence every Sunday afternoon. It was smooth and salty with a subtle sweetness but savory too…energizing but relaxing…decadent but rustic….oh it was an incredible liquid contradiction in the best way. I’ve never had anything quite like it since living there…until I discovered Four Sigmatic Mushroom Elixirs.
I picked up a little packet of Reishi Mushroom Elixir several months ago from Boketto (as I can’t resist a creative way to take medicinal mushrooms). As soon as I came home, I dropped the contents into some piping hot water and added a pinch of sea salt and experienced an intensely real time transport back to that little Irish cafe with my beloved imbibed Sunday contradiction. It was just a faint reminder of that liquid heaven I had in Galway – enough so that I subsequently bought a sample of every mushroom elixir available and started playing around with recipes to try and recreate it just as I had remembered. “What luck, too!”, I thought, “that it’s mushroom based!” I love mushrooms and any excuse to take them excited me to no end. All this time I’d been taking mushroom tinctures almost daily…and those are fine and all, but certainly don’t taste as good as these little packets of nostalgia.
I eventually struck upon a combination that was blissful and true to what my tastebuds remembered with the addition of homemade almond milk, a pinch of pink salt and a dollop of intensely delicious coconut butter infused with building and invigorating Shatavari from Laka (another incredible find from Boketto). This midday elixir has everything I’ve been craving lately with a texture that’s absolutely transporting and as creamy as freshly melted chocolate.
The addition of mushrooms into my daily health regimen has been steadfast over the past several years and I’m a huge proponent of incorporating medicinal mushrooms into our medicine cabinets and our kitchens! I’m fascinated with mushrooms and their eclectic and diverse use as a tonic and supportive remedy of the immune system plus about a hundred other potential uses currently being researched. Medicinal mushrooms like Reishi, Chaga and Cordyceps are some of the few natural medicines being thoroughly researched in specific health conditions, giving them some major clout and potential to be accepted and utilized by the western medical community (it’s all about evidence based, evidence based, evidence based and mushrooms are starting to prove themselves in that niche way too, despite their hundreds of years of medicinal use…). Mushrooms are something that I would consider a food source of tonic health, and I often think that’s the best way to take medicine – in our daily diet.
Use any milk base you’d prefer. I like to use freshly made almond milk, lightly sweetened with dates. My favorite mushroom elixir to use in this recipe is the Chaga blend but honestly all of their mushroom blends are decadent and delicious in this recipe. I add in a bit of ashwagandha root for added adaptogenic support. Top with fancy flora of your choosing if you’re feeling like some mid-afternoon decadence.
