Re: Ones man's weed is another man's herbal remedy!

TINCTURES:

Tinctures are a concentrated liquid herbal extract using alcohol, apple cider vinegar, or vegetable glycerine. Often the healing properties of the herb are better extracted with the above solvents than just plain water. Tinctures are easy to make and they are great for storage because they take up so little room. To make a tincture we take one ounce of the dried herbs to a pint of grain alcohol such as eighty proof vodka. Put these into a glass jar, and close the jar. Shake the jar vigorously several times a day for fourteen days. (Some herbalists say that tinctures are more potent when begun on the new moon.) In emergency situations we have made tinctures in as little as three days, but for full potency, fourteen days is standard. Do not exceed fourteen days. Strain off the liquid, squeezing all the liquid from the solid herbs. Discard the solids.

Bottle the tincture in dark colored glass bottles and cover it tightly. If you are going to store the tincture for the future, melt some paraffin wax and dip the stoppered bottle top into the wax to prevent evaporation through microscopic air leaks around the stopper. Tinctures will last indefinitely. We have opened up tinctures that are still potent after twenty years of storage.

These tinctures can be administered as is, a few drops at a time, or diluted in distilled water or juice. If you do not wish to take the alcohol internally, you may put several drops of tincture into a cup of hot water and the alcohol will evaporate off leaving the healing properties of the herb in the water. Alcohol is used when there are resinous or oily properties in the herb. Glycerine or cider vinegar will not often be able to extract these oils and resins.

Tinctures are usually made with dried herbs because they take up one-eighth the room as of fresh herbs. One herb which lends its properties better to apple cider vinegar than alcohol is lobelia. The tincture of lobelia is made as described above, and we substitute a pint of apple cider vinegar for the pint of vodka in the recipe.

Pure vegetable glycerine can be used in a tincture as follows: You may make a concentrated tea by allowing about one-third to three-fourths of the original water to evaporate off of an already strained tea. Do this on low heat--never boil. Then add one-third to three-fourths parts of vegetable glycerine to the cooled tea. This may also be put into dark colored glass bottles and stoppered. The vegetable glycerine acts as a preservative and a healing and soothing agent.

Another way to make it is to soak four ounces of powdered herb in a pint of solution made from one-fourth pint (four ozs.) of vegetable glycerine and three-fourths pint (12 ozs.) of steamed distilled water. Put the lid on the jar. Shake the jar vigorously every day for ten days and strain and bottle as in the first tincture recipe. Glycerine is naturally sweet and will often impart a pleasant flavor to many herbal preparations. An example is the home-made cough syrup made from fresh onions, licorice root, honey and glycerine. Make sure you obtain the pure vegetable glycerine for your formulas. The glycerine
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