Well, I'm still single, so on second thought, make it a double for one. Nyuk, nyu~k!
My love life may suck, but I've been getting better at making tinctures. When I first started, I would often use course pieces of fresh plant material and didn't care too much about ratios or how long the mixture had macerated. This was mostly due to some of the books I read in the beginning. Many didn't go into enough detail. There'd be a sentence like, "Loosely fill a jar with [some herb] and pour enough alcohol to just cover it. Shake vigorously daily for 2 weeks. Decant, bottle and label."
So, I ended up with several very weak tinctures, partly because of the above simplistic instructions, but also because I wasn't too concerned with factors like harvest time, specific plant parts, alcoholic strength and so on. But that's a thing of the past. Eight or nine books and a semester of microbiology and an Introduction to Herbal Medicine Making class later, I think I've made some progress.
I do tend to prefer tinctures made with fresh plant material to dried, but I have done both and in some cases substantial evidence exists as to why one method is superior to the other depending on the herb. I've also started using a blender or food processor to get the botanical parts cut up as minutely as possible. Now, I actually weigh the herb and decide beforehand what herb-to-menstruum ratio is favorable; usually between 1:2 and 1:4 for the herbs I currently grow. However, there are more poisonous herbs, such as monkshood, the seeds of which I have gestating under mulch as I type this, for which a 1:10 ratio is preferable.
Alcoholic strength is another detail I've been paying more attention to, if only as a mental notation. Truth be told, my budget won't allow me to purchase enough of the 190-proof ethyl alcohol, or even the 151-proof Everclear for that matter. So, most of my tinctures are made with 40% (80-proof) vodka and recently, I've started using gin, thinking the medicinal properties of the juniper berries used to flavor it would combine well with the herbs being steeped in it. I have even found some 90-proof gin that is very reasonably priced. Since the alcoholic strength is not as strong as I ideally would like, I am extra careful with the other steps. In addition, careful attention is paid to the parts of the plants being used and the time at which they are harvested, and notations are made on labels to reflect this. Finally, I've found comfortable and effective, if crude, means of straining the spent plant matter from the medicine-laden menstruum.
The photo above is of several tinctures I've prepared over the last 6 months or so. What amazes me most is how two different plants may go into their respective tincture preparation looking pretty much equally green and leafy, but yield entirely different colors in the finished product. For example, both Bacopa monnieri and Centella asiatica, shown below, are medium green in color and low-growing creeping herbs. Both have long histories of medicinal use in India and both are referred to as "brahmi" in Sanskrit. Yet, when all the chopping, steeping and shaking was done, Centella came out an opaque sort of honey and lemon color with the slightest pale green tinge, while Bacopa has a dark yet clear amber-like color. Milk thistle, on the other hand, was made from seeds that resemble brown rice that had been uniformly roasted to a darker, almost burnt brown. The tincture, as you can see (above pic), came out looking like milky coffee.
Although I still have a lot to learn, it's an art form that I feel has already become second nature for me.
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