How to Make an Herbal Tincture
A tincture is made by macerating a plant in a menstruum of alcohol and water for two to six weeks, then pressing the marc and filtering the liquid. The working standard for a dried herb is 1:5, one part herb by weight to five parts menstruum by volume, in 45 percent alcohol: 100 grams of cut herb to 500 millilitres of menstruum. For a fresh plant the standard is 1:2 in 95 percent alcohol, because the plant brings its own water. These are the strengths the British Herbal Pharmacopoeia and the working herbalists, Hoffmann, Mills and Bone, Michael Moore, record, and the usual adult dose of a 1:5 tincture is 2 to 5 millilitres, three times a day.
The menstruum
The menstruum is the solvent, and its alcohol percentage is chosen for the plant's constituents. Water draws out mucilage, tannins, minerals, and most glycosides; alcohol draws out resins, essential oils, alkaloids, and the more lipophilic constituents, and preserves the whole. Twenty-five percent alcohol suits a tannin- or mucilage-rich plant, Marshmallow root, Althaea officinalis, or Meadowsweet, Filipendula ulmaria. Forty-five percent is the general strength for leaves, flowers, and most roots. Sixty percent suits the aromatic and alkaloidal roots, Valerian, Valeriana officinalis, among them. Ninety percent is reserved for resins, Myrrh, Commiphora myrrha, and for Calendula, Calendula officinalis, whose resin is the point of the preparation.
A 40 percent vodka serves the folk method without calculation. For an exact strength, a 95 percent grain spirit is diluted with distilled water. To make 500 millilitres of a 50 percent menstruum, the alcohol needed is 250 millilitres of pure spirit, which is 263 millilitres of the 95 percent, made up to 500 with water. The small contraction of volume on mixing is ignored in practice.
The weight-to-volume method
- Weigh the dried herb and cut or grind it coarsely. A powder extracts faster but clogs the press and clouds the tincture; a coarse cut is the pharmacopoeial standard.
- Measure the menstruum at five times the weight of the herb, in millilitres, at the chosen alcohol percentage.
- Put the herb in a glass jar with a tight lid, pour the menstruum over it, stir out the air, and cap. Label the jar with the plant, the part, fresh or dried, the ratio, the percentage, and the date.
- Macerate in a dark cupboard for two to six weeks, shaking the jar daily. The old pharmacopoeias set fourteen days; most herbalists give four weeks, and a hard root or bark six.
- Strain through muslin and press the marc, the spent herb, as hard as the equipment allows. A screw press or a potato ricer recovers a good deal more than hand-wringing, and the pressed liquid is the strongest part.
- Let the tincture stand a day, decant off the sediment or filter through paper, and bottle in amber glass with a dropper or a measured cap.
The folk method
The folk method measures nothing. A jar is filled loosely with the chopped herb, fresh to the top, dried to a half or two thirds so the plant can swell, and covered with a 40 to 50 percent spirit to a finger's width above the herb. The rest is the same: cap, label, shake, four weeks, press. The strength of the result is not known and varies with how tightly the jar was packed, which is why a practitioner who doses in millilitres uses weight-to-volume. For a fresh aerial herb made at home for household use, the folk method is sound, and it is how most people make their first tincture.
Fresh or dried
A fresh plant is 70 to 90 percent water by weight, so a 1:2 fresh tincture in 95 percent alcohol finishes near 50 to 60 percent alcohol and is roughly equal in plant matter to a 1:5 dried tincture. Some plants are only worth tincturing fresh: Lemon Balm, Melissa officinalis, whose aroma leaves the dried leaf; Milky Oat, Avena sativa, in the milky stage of the seed; Shepherd's Purse, Capsella bursa-pastoris; and St John's Wort, Hypericum perforatum, whose fresh flowers give the tincture its deep red. Roots and barks are as good dried, and easier to weigh.
Storage and dose
A tincture at 25 percent alcohol or above keeps for years in a cool dark place; five years is the usual working limit, and a tincture that has thrown a heavy sediment or lost its colour is retired. Doses are given in millilitres, and one millilitre of a 1:5 tincture carries the extract of 0.2 grams of dried herb, so that 5 millilitres represents a gram.
| Preparation | Ratio and strength | Usual adult dose |
|---|---|---|
| Dried-herb tincture | 1:5 in 25 to 60 percent | 2 to 5 ml, three times daily |
| Fresh-plant tincture | 1:2 in 95 percent | 2 to 4 ml, three times daily |
| Fluid extract | 1:1 | 0.5 to 2 ml, three times daily |
| Low-dose plants, Lobelia, Lobelia inflata | 1:10 | drops, 0.2 to 0.6 ml |
A tincture of a plant with a known drug interaction carries the same interaction as the plant: St John's wort lowers the blood levels of oral contraceptives, antidepressants, and many other drugs through CYP3A4, and Valerian adds to sedatives.
Not medical advice.