White Horehound

Horehound candy drops are bittersweet hard candies like cough drops made with sugar and an extract of M. vulgare. They are dark-colored, dissolve in the mouth, and have a flavor that has been compared to menthol and root beer. Like other products derived from M. vulgare, they are sometimes used as an unproven folk treatment for coughs and other ailments. M. vulgare is used to make beverages such as horehound beer (similar to root beer), horehound herbal tea (similar to the Maghrebi mint tea), and the rock and rye cocktail.

White horehound has been mentioned in conjunction with use as a folk medicine dating at least back to the 1st century BC, where it appeared as a remedy for respiratory ailments in the treatise De Medicina by Roman encyclopaedist Aulus Cornelius Celsus. The Roman agricultural writer Columella lists it as a remedy for expelling worms in farm animals in his important first-century work On Agriculture. Since then, white horehound has appeared for similar purposes in numerous herbals over the centuries, such as The Herball, or, Generall historie of plantes by John Gerard, and Every Man His Own Doctor: or, The Poor Planter's Physician. M. vulgare has been described in monographs of the German Commission E as a treatment for colds, as a digestive, and as a choleretic. It is one of the ingredients of the Ricola throat lozenge. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not endorse the plant for use as a drug, but includes it as a safe food additive.

The Oxford English Dictionary derives the word horehound from Old English hoar (furry, as in "hoarfrost") and hune (a word of unknown origin designating a class of herbs or plants). The second element was altered by folk etymology. The word "white" is generally used in botanical contexts, to distinguish it from black horehound (Ballota nigra), a similar-looking herb.