Hands-on how-to: making your own tinctures

Although I've made reference here and there on this blog to throwing together tinctures, it seems I've never done a dedicated post on the subject before.

What was I thinking??

Actually, what I was thinking was that anyone could find the information pretty easily out there on the interwebz. Thing is, turns out the instructions 'out there' are often needlessly complicated, incomplete or downright wrong .. sigh ..

So today's post, like so many before it, is in answer to some of that nonsense. Hopefully I'll be able to clarify some details, clear up some confusion, dispel some myths and help you to see that you, too, can make far better quality tinctures at home than you can buy anywhere - and do it on the cheap, too.

Like cooking or baking, making your own herbal remedies is about following a basic recipe, learning the ratios, then, as you gain experience, winging it according to your best judgement. There are - of course - exceptions to some of the rules, and I'll cover those too.

What follows is my own experience, based on about 2 decades of tincture making.

The TL;DR version of this post? Plants + booze x time = tincture. But there's a little more to it than that, so read on ..


Here's the BASIC METHOD:

1) Fill a glass jar to the top with fairly roughly chopped or snipped plant material - only rinse the material if you're using roots that are especially dirty.

2) Fill the jar again with your chosen booze, ensuring the plant material is well covered.

3) With a twig or similar, poke around to release air bubbles.

4) Label the jar with ingredients and the date.

Yes, it is that easy.

I like to use mason jars. They come in several sizes, they can be reused, they're easy to clean and you can buy new lids if you lose them. You can use any kind of jar you have handy as long as the lid fits well and doesn't smell of pickles. No need to sterilize your jars, but they ought to be scrupulously clean.

Choosing materials:

Plant material

Tinctures are best made from fresh plant material. They really are.

In some cases it may be acceptable to use dried material, but in no case (that I know of) will you get the best possible end product that way. Forget what you may have read about 'excess water' in fresh plant material potentially causing 'spoilage'. That's the case when you're infusing plants in oil, yes, but not in alcohol.


Booze

Tinctures are best made with vodka or brandy.

Everclear or other high-test alcohol may be more efficient at quickly extracting alcohol-soluble ingredients of the plant, but that is all they'll extract. With tinctures we also want the water soluble ingredients. Tinctures made with pure alcohol, then, make for a lower quality end product.

Vodka is preferable as it is tasteless and colourless, so the tastes and colours of your plant material can shine through. Brandy is second best; I find it masks flavours and colours too much.

Yes, you can also use whisky or other booze - even wine! Just make sure that you have at least 15% alcohol content or your tincture will spoil. Tinctures made with vodka seem to last forever; I have some in the back of my apothecary cabinet that are almost 20 yrs old and they're still perfect.

There are those who make tinctures with glycerine - I do not. I don't like the cloyingly sweet flavour, I've never found the extraction satisfactory and it's far more expensive than vodka.

If you're afraid of the amount of alcohol you'll get in a few drops of tincture then put your tincture in a small amount of VERY HOT water or tea and wait til it cools before you take it. The alcohol will have evaporated, leaving only the herbal ingredients behind.

Time

Tinctures should be allowed to steep for at least a month before they are used. If you're desperate, you can use them when they're younger than that, but 4-6 weeks is optimal. Keep them AWAY  from the sun, please. There are two common exceptions to this rule that I know of; St John'swort and calendula should be steeped in the sun, but all others should be kept out of it. They don't have to be hidden away in the dark, mind you, just know that the sun's rays will 'cook' your plant material and break down some of the more delicate ingredients.

Check and shake your tinctures daily for at least the first week. Plant material has a tendency to float, so you'll need to poke it back down under the surface of the menstruum (that's the booze it's soaking in) and sometimes you'll need to add a little more liquid - the fairies sometimes take a sip when we're not looking!

You can strain your tinctures as soon as the time is up, or you can leave the plant material in there nearly forever - it won't go bad. When straining, shake well first. There are times that just pouring it through a fine mesh strainer will do, and there are other times you'll want to put a coffee filter in there to catch finer particles that you don't want in your tincture. If you're using heavy materials like roots or barks, you may want to strain through a fine cloth so you can squeeze every bit of tincture out of the plant material.

Aerial Tinctures:

"Aerial" parts is herbalist lingo for any part of the plant that grows above ground; the leaves, flowers and stems of the plant. We usually pick those just as the plant is coming into flower, so that about 1/3 of the flowers are fully open, another third are in bud, and the last third are just coming on. Generally we just take cuttings of the flowering tops and the top, most tender of the leaves. Generally, we snip the leaves and flowers off the stems, although a little stem is fine.

(NB - Commercial herbal companies are really sly about this. If you look at the fine print ingredient list, where they should be listing "aerial parts" they'll instead write "herb". Bastards! That's their way of tricking the consumer into thinking all is well, but it is not necessarily so. Some herbs like echinacea, dandelion, goldenseal and others should be made from the root, not the aerial parts, or as they call it "herb". Buyer beware!)

Many plants are picked for use when just coming into flower, but not all. Check your source(s) to see when the ideal time for your chosen plant might be. When we're working with biennials (plants that flower in the second year), we sometimes take the leaves in the first year, and flowers in the second.

Try not to harvest on a cloudy day, sunny days mean more open flowers and more 'goodness' in the surface of the plants. Late morning is ideal.

I don't wash these at all, to do so would be to wash away pollen and other good stuff. However, it does pay to let them sit for a few moments before they go into the jar, just to let the bugs escape (there are always bugs). Nor do I snip or chop them up too fine. You have to be gentle with these, they're delicate.

There are many variations here i.e. rose petal tincture is made with just the petals (I don't chop them at all), calendula tincture includes the whole flower, St John'swort is flowers and the surrounding leaves. Again, check your source(s) for recommendations.

Use only flowers and leaves that are perfect. Bug holes, faded blooms and the like should be discarded.

Root tinctures

Roots are harvested when the plant's energy is concentrated there, generally autumn when the plant has died back, although sometimes springtime, before the plant has put on much growth. It's a good idea, if you're going for roots, to scout out and perhaps mark the location of the plants you want in the summer or early fall, so you can find them more easily once they've died back or they're covered in a thick layer of fallen leaves.

BE CERTAIN of your identification here. It's easy to mistake one plant for another at this stage, and although it's unlikely you'll accidentally dig something poisonous, if you think you have plantain and it turns out to be violet, things could get nasty.

Never harvest roots during a rainy spell, nor should you harvest them in the midst of a drought.

Generally, roots are at their best after at least one light frost.

If conditions are right and your roots are not too muddy, you can get away with the method I like best; I let them sit outside (out of the sun) for a few hours until the soil clinging to them has dried and loosened, then shake/smack them around so that the excess comes off. After that, I wipe them down with a cloth. As I'm chopping them up I use the tip of my knife to remove the soil that's stuck in nooks and crannies.

Although I will, in some cases, rinse roots before tincturing them, I don't do so under running water. Instead, I fill a basin or bucket and swoosh them. This is a case of 'going with my gut' that it not only does a better job, it's less likely to forcibly remove the good soil bacteria that cling to the root bark. I want that soil bacteria! I then pat them dry.

The idea is to get as much of the inner root surface exposed to the alcohol as possible, so in some cases I chop the roots into pieces that look like niblets of corn, and in other cases, I split them lengthwise. It's really something you decide on the spot. Needless to say, remove and discard any black, bug eaten or otherwise imperfect bits.

Bark tinctures

When I first read about using barks I pictured, well, bark, the thick brown stuff on the outside of the tree. In reality, when we read 'bark' what's most often meant is 'inner bark'. If you've ever whittled a stick ..

(and here I must pause and suggest that we ought to start a resurgence of this most enjoyable and peaceful of past-times and teach it to our children, too)

.. then you're aware that bark comes in layers. If you're making a bark tincture, respectfully take young branches and twigs from the tree you're going to work with. Then peel them. In most cases, the outer bark will be so paper-thin that it makes little to no difference if you let it get into your tincture.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, working with barks is one of my favourite things to do; the fragrance that meets the nose as one peels those little sticks is often just delightful. Unlike whittling, peel towards you, not away, to ensure you're not going too deep. A little wood in a tincture may not do any harm, but it takes up valuable space in the jar and sucks up an awful lot of the booze that you then have to work to squeeze out.

Which brings me to ..

Why it's best to not make tinctures from dried plant material

Just as bits of wood will soak up the booze in your tincture jar, so will dried roots, in fact even more so. Not only are you missing out on the good juices, starches and mucilage that fresh roots have to offer, dried roots are sponges. If you insist on using (or are stuck with because it's all you can get your hands on) dried material, then invest in an herb press; you will need that mechanical 'edge' to squeeze all the finished tincture outta there.

And for heaven's sake, don't bother using powdered root for tinctures. The stuff is practically inert as it is, goes 'off' easily when it's one of the oilier roots like burdock and it will yield almost nothing of any medicinal value into a tincture (but you might get tincture of mold, what fun!). Don't bother arguing with me on this point. I've been there, done that, seen the difference in quality between all these types of material and I shall not be moved from my stance on this issue.

Now, to dried 'aerial parts'. By all means use them for teas and infusions, but not tinctures. There are exceptions, mind you; some of the highly flavourful and resinous plants might work. I've made a nice calendula tincture with dried flowers, and some of the mint family culinary herbs, like rosemary or even peppermint might be worth a try. But St John'swort from dried plant material would be fruitless, the whole point of St J tincture is the red juices produced by the fresh plant, and that really holds true for so many other that this is one rule that is pretty hard and fast.

If you feel like experimenting, go the grocery store and buy yourself a fresh bunch of something - rosemary or basil perhaps, greenhouse grown - and the dried version at the same time. Make small tinctures of each and taste them after 4-6 weeks to see the difference. Then, to complete the experiment, grow the same plant in a pot on your deck or in the garden this summer and tincture that, too. You'll see that the tincture made from the plant freshly picked on a sunny day will win, hands down.

Further thoughts

Make your tinctures from one plant at a time. I know it's tempting to combine two that you'll likely use together anyway - dandelion & burdock for example. But you'll get better quality and can do more with them if they're made singly. There will come a time you only want a few drops of that dandelion by itself, or you want to combine it with yellow dock, not burdock. Combination tinctures might seem like a good idea at the time but you'll probably find yourself painted into a corner later.

You can make a whole plant tincture - spring or fall roots and leaves of dandelion are often tinctured together. Why not roots, leaves and flowers? Because the quality of the roots will be poor when the plant is in flower.

There are other variations on a tincture theme - sometimes we find our tincture a bit weak so we do it all again by adding more plant material after straining the first tincture - sometimes that works, sometimes not. Or making tinctures twice from the same plant material, ditto. Then there's decocted tinctures, which are a matter of such debate that I won't venture to touch that subject here.

Keeping all of this straight in your head is a matter paying close attention when you're reading, rereading and re-rereading your herb books and - say it with me now - always checking at least 3 sources before deciding how you want to proceed. And of course, experience will teach you far more than reading will.

So - pore over your books for the rest of the winter, order those seeds and plants and let me know how your tinctures turn out!