tincturing Echinacea

This is just a quick recap of having recently started a batch of Echinacea tincture. Recently I got an order of Echinacea root, about 3 pounds. I was hoping to get whole root. The supplier is somewhat local to me here in Pennsylvania, one of the main reasons I deal with them.... but, this is now the second order from them that I tried to get some info from them (prior to making the purchase) that they were not very good about giving answers in the kind of detail I asked for. I wanted to know the source / origin of this root (domestic or foreign), if it was radiated or not, and if it would come as whole root? The package came with a handwritten message on the inside "not irradiated", but did not say anything about origin. The herb came already cut... I'm tempted to say it is in the form that many sell as "cut & sifted" which is possibly true but the herb is nearly powdered....not quite powdered, but cut enough to be nearly powdered. This was a definite disappointment for me. I may end up trying Mountain Rose on the next order of this kind.

Anyway, over the past 2 weeks I had several cups of hot tea made this herb, just to check & see if it tasted like good quality. I got the telltale "tingly" sensation on the tongue & pallet, so I took this as a good sign to proceed with starting a tincture. The main reasons for doing the test were a few fold: #1, this is my first go round working with Echinacea, I still remember from the Schulze video how he gave the class a taste test and pointed out that you know when you have good Echinacea root because of the taste and sensation it leaves in the mouth....and I wanted to experience this; #2, a year ago I bought a small amount of Echinacea, a bit of cut (nearly powdered root) and a small bag of flowers, from a different local supplier. That stuff gave virtually zero taste... no tingle, little taste. I took this as a sign of herb that had been on the shelf too long. Good thing I only bought a small amount, most of which I drank as hot tea off & on last winter.


Last night I began the tincture, using store-bought 90 proof Vodka. I use glass containers for tincturing. When possible I reuse an empty glass liquor bottle or something similar, like gallon sized glass jugs. There is a brand name of organic apple juice I buy locally, its not that I'm all that crazy about this brand of juice but I like the fact it comes in a real glass jug that I can save and re-use for other purposes. Making tincture is one such purpose.

Based on some exceptionally rough math I'd worked out in my head, I expected to get most of this 3 pounds of cut Echinacea root into one empty 1.75 liter bottle. The bottle has a wide mouth as far as liquor bottles go. Its not as wide as I'd like but is serviceable nonetheless. I poured about 4 ounces of 100 proof vodka into this clean container, and then poured in a good dose of the new herb... probably a good 6 ounces give or take, then put the lid on, shook some, and repeated adding more vodka and then herb and then more shaking till the water mark (top of the liquid) was pretty much right at the 1/2 full point of the jug. I had also used pretty close to 1/2 of a 1.75 liter bottle of vodka. It was at that point that I stopped to give the herb a night to swell, with the intention of coming back the next day (today) to top off as needed.

I got sidetracked with a variety of activities today and did not check in on the new tincture as early as I had wanted. I was late in the day when I pulled the new tincture out of the pantry and was surprised to find that the top mark had moved up well over the half way point of the bottle AND this herb had swelled so much that when I lifted the bottle and turned it upside down there was virtually no liquid sloshing around inside. I kept thinking about the anecdote that Uny tells, about the time when she started off making a batch of new tincture but because of the swell factor, the next day the herb was nearly bursting out the top of the bottle and she then had to scramble around to get more vodka to get the batch where it needed to be. This was one of the reasons why I stopped last night at the 1/2 way mark......anyway, it was still a surprise to find this new batch had a good two to three inches of herb that had sort of caked onto the the bottom of the glass bottle. It took me an hour or so going through the process of 1) finding an appropriate utensil to chisel at and loosen the caked-together herb, 2) add more vodka, 3) shake vigorously, 4)repeat, to get this straightened out. By the time this was done I had ended up using a clean, empty 1 gallon glass jug, which is now nearly full of herb & vodka, with enough left over that the original 1.75 liter bottle is also about half full of new tincture. I had intended to use the second full bottle of vodka to start a batch of Hawthorn Berry tincture..... so I also ended up making an unexpected return trip to the liquor store .... more visions of Uny.

Long story, the full gallon jug and half-full 1.75 liter jug are resting for a second night. I think I'm past the caked-on point but will know for sure tomorrow. I'm not sure what I had been thinking before, but sort of had the idea that I would get most of this 3 pounds of Echinacea herb into one 1.75 liter bottle.....but now I have 1 gallon plus another half of 1.75 liters of new tincture, and there is still close to 1 pound of herb left in the bag of Echinacea ..... ?... I dunno, chalk it up to another lesson learned on the tincture trail. For now I'm in no need / hurry to use this new tincture, it will stay tincturing for several moons to come into the near future. Tweet