HEALING ARTS Choosing Your Spirit -Making Tinctures© By Susun S. Weed
Continued from February MAKING A VINEGAR TINCTURE
Vinegar tinctures are not very potent, don’t last for as long as alcohol tinctures, and have an aggravating tendency to rust the lid onto the tincture bottle. A few medicinal herbs, such as Lobelia and Wintergreen, are commonly tinctured in vinegar. Many garden herbs, such as Tarragon, Oregano, Chives, and Rosemary, are put up in vinegar.
If you make full strength tinctures with these seasoning herbs, instead of the weak brews you’ve probably been making, you’ll be thrilled with the marinades and salad dressings you’ll be able to create.
Follow the above tincture instructions for fresh and dried plants, with these changes:
❦ Fill your jar to the top with room temperature,
not boiling, vinegar. ❦
Use apple cider vinegar, wine vinegar (or wine),
rice vinegar, etc., but no white vinegar. ❦
❦ Use cork or plastic to cap all your vinegar tinc-
tures. A piece of waxed paper or plastic wrap between the jar and the metal lid is acceptable.
The usual dose of a medicinal vinegar tincture is
one teaspoon per 100 pounds of body weight. ❦
would regular vinegar. Heavenly!
TIPS FOR MAKING ALL TINCTURES ❦
❦ ❦ Choose a jar that will be filled to the top by the
plant material and the alcohol; if an empty “head space” is left, some of the plant material oxidizes and spoilage is more likely.
For extra potency, put up tinctures when the
moon is dark or new; decant them when the moon is full. This helps oils, too.
Keep your tincture in a place where you can
watch the interesting changes in color, and occasionally poke your finger in to get a taste. There is no need to
In cooking, use your vinegar tincture just as you
shake it daily or keep it in isolation or the dark. Avoid strong direct sunlight, though. Occasionally tinctures will ooze; protect your furniture.
❦ Although the tincture is ready to use in six weeks
(that’s one reason why you label it with the date - so you know when it is ready), there is no need to decant it then. I have kept some herbs sitting in their vodka for years with no problems or decrease of potency.
❦ To decant the tincture, just pour off the alcohol,
put it into a brown glass bottle, and cap tightly. You will notice that the plant material is still wet. Put small handfuls of it in a cotton cloth and wring, hard! (This also builds good muscles in the hands.) Add this extra tincture to your bottle.
❦ If your tincture is made from dried roots, much
of it remains in the roots after decanting, because dried plant material absorbs alcohol. There are various ways to retrieve that extra tincture. The easiest way is to put the plant material through a centrifugal juicer (minus the cutting blade) such as Acme or Braun. If you don’t have access to a juicer, you can use a salad spinner. Wringing is also possible.
❦ Label the bottle of decanted tincture with the same information you put on the original tincture.
❦ When you’re ready to use the tincture, put some of the decanted tincture in a small glass bottle with a dropper top. Please use only glass droppers, as residues from plastic droppers will interfere with the medicinal actions of the herbs (and your continued good health). Label the dropper bottle clearly and keep it in a safe place. Buy dropper bottles at your local pharmacy or by mail.
❦ It is advisable to respect the potency of herbal
tinctures; although it is unlikely that ingestion of even an entire ounce bottleful could kill someone, the likeli- hood of unsettling effects from such a large dose is great.
CHOOSING YOUR SPIRIT I prepare nearly all of my tinctures in 100 proof vodka.
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Oracle 20/20 March 2011
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