Boiled coke and ginger lemon for cough

This post has nothing to do with Japan, except that I have the tendency to fall sick during long Japanese holidays like year end and golden week. So with weak Japanese medicine not working, and even with kiwis and lemon honey drink all failing, I resorted to my friend's advice: coke and ginger.

It sounded unusual so I googled and found the recipe. Amazingly, many people swear that it works wonder to cure their coughs and sore throats, so I decided to try out of desperation because I had already been coughing for four days and four nights.

Preparation:
Put a can of coke (around 350ml) and sliced ginger into a pot and bring to boil, simmer for 10 mins. You can either add lemon when it was simmering or squeezed lemon juice after you pour into your mug.
*I couldn't get old ginger from my Japanese supermarket so I used young ginger that was not so spicy.

Verdict:
I couldn't believe it, but it tasted rather good! Even my friend who disliked ginger said this remedy tasted great! There was a tingling burning sensation down my throat and warmed up my body. I drank it at 9pm and it did clear my sinus and throat immediately, until I woke up at 3am coughing out phlegm and clearing my reservoir of mucus in my mouth. So I decided to try again for the next two days just before I sleep. It sorta helped my sinus and coughing, but my pharmaceutical friend warned me that coke contains advance glycation end products that promotes aging and inflammation, so it is better not to drink so much, moreover one can of coke contains nearly 10 sugar cubes!!! No wonder it tasted so sweet :P~

I would recommend this if your cold, sore throat and cough is due to catching a cold/chill. I am not sure if it will cure heaty cough (for example, caused by eating too much fried food or late nights). For heaty cough, I would recommend loquat (pipagao in Chinese).

Replacement:
I guess nobody expected the miracle drink to not cure the sick by its third dose, so I changed to ginger honey drink. I sliced the ginger thinly this time in hope of increasing its potency. Preparation is the same, boil water, put in the ginger slices, and continue boiling for 10mins. Then add lemon juice and/or honey to taste. It certainly didn't taste as good as coke ginger, and the burning sensation rather dampened down. But I think it works almost as well.

Also try:
Lemon Ginger Honey Drink
Lemon Ginger Honey (in a jar)

If you have a good cold remedy to share, feel free to let me know too!!!