Re: tincturing Echinacea

Congratulations on your first tincturing experience!  Seems there were a few of us this new moon, great.  

I wouldn't worry too much about  your little mishap lol.  I had one of those too, I didn't have enough Vodka and all the liquor stores are closed on Sundays but all my herbs are wet so its no big deal until tomorrow when I can get some more.

I've been going through all the old posts about tincturing and learned that Echinacea is the herb that swells the most.  All root herbs swell more than the leaf herbs but it seems Echinacea is the worst.  Even knowing that I have a feeling I'm going to have to split some jars lol, part of the learning curve is how I look at it.

All the tincturing posts I've read say that you should only fill the jar up to 1/3 with the herbs to start and go from there.  Also, my way of thinking is that its best to buy the herbs cut and sifted (c/s) because Uny says that after 3 days the whole jar should be put in a blender or a Vita-mix and macerated completely. This would be very hard to achieve with a whole root of any herb I would think.

As for the place you ordered the Echinacea from, I think it sounds kind of shady they wouldn't tell you the country of origin and to get a hand written note about it not being irradiated is kind of strange unless they are a mom and pop kind of business.  It is your RIGHT to know what country the herbs you are purchasing come from and if they are organic, wildcrafted or neither.  Do they have a website?  I ordered all my herbs from Mountain Rose, Pacific Botanicals, and Starwest where Uny buys hers.  They all have a website and for each herb they sell they have the country of origin and if its organic, wildcrafted, or not organic.  I agree that next time you might ought to order from Mountain Rose or one of the others I've listed because that way you'll be sure of exactly what you're getting.  I had a couple of questions and called both M/R and P/B and they were extremely helpful in answering to my satisfaction.

I'm sure you're tincture is going to be great.  I sure had fun on my first tincturing adventure, I hope you did too.  Please let us know how it all works out.

Willow