Mikki's First Tincture
One fine day, I became weary of having to buy tinctures that I wasn't quite certain of potency, usage, etc., so I decided that perhaps it was time for me to make my own. After all, here I was, a graduate of the Global Institute for Alternative Medicine's Master Herbalist program, so I oughta be able to do something as simple as a tincture, right? Uh...well....uh.... read on.
So, I've been having really annoying headaches lately that advil and ultram don't seem to touch. I figured a nice tincture of feverfew, white willow bark, and a bit of peppermint would do the trick, so off I went to my Herbal Medicine Maker's Handbook (By James Green) and looked up tinctures. It was there that I had my first shock.
When I opened the book, I found all this information about menstruum. It was COMPLICATED! ACK!. Well, I decided, maybe it's just time to fly by the seat of my broom. One of the things mentioned that was a solvent was alcohol. Ok, maybe I ought to try at least some alcohol I LIKED....like maybe some peach schnapps. Yeah, ok....sounds good. But how much to use? How much herb to use? Back to the book I went.
Well, the book was even more complicated regarding tinctures as it was regarding menstruum. My brain immediately began spinning because it had the dreaded *MATH* in it. Ratios! Measurements! There were different ones for whether the herb is dried, different ones for whether the herb is alkaloid, different ones for all kinds of other things. Egads!
Just before despair, I found another page called "Tincturing by Using the Folk Method." This one was only 11 steps! And no math! Woo hoo! So I poured in the peach schnapps onto the herb, made sure there was about 1/4 inch of liquid underneath it, shook it when I was supposed to, and decanted it. Taste test went well (as in I didn't faint.) So gee, not so bad. And I learned a lot.
What I learned:
1. Peach schnapps is STICKY! Sticky icky sticky.
2. Making tinctures is harder than it looks
3. You don't necessarily get a more consistent concentration of herb extract by doing it yourself. In fact, if you're math impaired, you might do a lot worse than a reliable commercial supplier.
4. However, your tincture might taste a lot better than theirs :-) And you can make custom tincture blends that might not be available elsewhere.
5. I really need to read that book much more carefully!