Re: Making a tincture

Bill:

I have been making tinctures for about 3 years now. I use 80 proof vodka and it works very well with dry herbs. If you are using fresh herbs, use something with more alcohol in it. I use 190 proof Everclear for all my fresh herb tinctures. As to the cycles of the moon, it's my understanding from what Dr. Schulze says, that you need to put your slurry in a mason jar on the new moon. And strain it through 100% cotton cheese cloth on the full moon. The longer you leave the slurry in the mason jar, the stronger it gets. But I have found that the key to the length of time you leave the slurry in the jar, is in relation to how much time you want to invest in shaking the jars. The jars need to be shaken several times each day. If you don't shake them often enough, the alcohol will seperate from the herbs and the herbs will start to go bad. I've made some real stinkers this way. So I learned the hard way. Personally, I don't like to keep shaking the jars for all that long. So I just make a 1 cycle tincture. When you have 2 to 3 dozen jars of tincture to shake, severl times a day, it get's old fast.

Good Luck,
Tracy