Making Your Own Tinctures & Extracts

 Making Your Own Tinctures and Extracts 

You can make liquid extracts using just water....that's what a tea is.  However, the water will go bad in a short time.  The best thing to use is a mixture of water and grain alcohol - cheap Vodka.  80 proof or 40% alcohol means that it is 60% pure water and 40% grain alcohol.   Alcohol helps to extract some of the compounds which are harder to get out with water.  Also, if you prefer, apple cider vinegar can be used as well instead of alcohol.


Tincture should be made on a new moon (when its dark).  Take fresh herbs, place in blender, cover herbs completely with vodka.  Turn on the blender, blend about 1 minute or until it's completely blended.  This is called a full-spectrum tincture.  The smell and taste are fullbodied.  The fresh tincture is potent.  You can take it when it is freshly blended, and it is very good.  But you should put this in a jar, place in a pantry or other dark place, take it out each day and shake it, place it back in the pantry.  Do this for fourteen days.  At the end of fourteen days, take it out, strain out the herb, and what you have is an aged tincture which will last indefinitely, preserved by the alcohol.  There are those who prefer to leave the herb in and not strain it out.  If you do, that's great, but you won't be able to keep it in a dropper bottle in your purse unless you strain some of it.


The number one emergency herb to have on hand is cayenne.  That's right, hot peppers.   Hotter means more phytochemical, which means more medicinal effect.  So always get the hottest peppers you can find.  See this chart which rates the heat units of each pepper.  You want at least 100,000 (or 100K) heat units.


Remove stems from peppers.  Put whole peppers into blender, and cover with vodka.  Blend on high for one minute, or until thoroughly blended.  It will be a kind of thick, soupy mix.  You can eat this by spoonfuls right from the blender, it should make you feel warm, energetic, and have a sense of well-being.  You can save it like this and eat some whenever you want.  However, you should strain at least some of it and put it in those dark glass dropper bottles.  Keep a bottle in your pocket, purse, car glove compartment, home medicine chest, your office desk, any place you spend a lot of time.  You can also allow whole or chopped peppers to dry out on your kitchen cabinet and grind them to powder.

Therapeutic Benefits:


Stops bleeding (internal or external), Heart Attack, Stroke, Shock.  Revives, relieves fainting, dizziness, weakness and confusion.


For hemorrhage after childbirth, squirt 15-20 dropperfuls directly into the vagina.  The bleeding will stop in seconds.


For newborns with respiratory failure, use several drops tincture diluted half and half with water right on their tongues.


Congestive heart failure, drink 1 heaping tablespoon powder in a glass of warm water.


Heart attack, start at 5 dropperfuls.  Begin at 2 dropperfuls if the person is unconscious, then add more as response begins.  A dropperful is approximately 30 drops.  Testimonials have been received in which people who have been clinically dead, turning blue, whose hearts had stopped, were given this tincture from 1 to 12 dropperfuls, and their heart restarted and they recovered.


Wounds, you can pack them with the powder, or wash the wound with tincture, bleeding should stop in seconds.


Internal maintenance dose for tincture:  start with 5 drops in water or juice 3 times daily.  Go up to as many dropperfuls as you like.


Internal maintenance dose for powder:  start with 1/8 teaspoon 3 times daily, and go up if needed to many teaspoons per day.


These fresh tinctures are much stronger and more helpful than any you can buy commercially.  


Many people do not believe herbs work, because they have tried what's available at the store, and nothing has happened.  They don't work for two reasons:  1)  They don't use a large enough dose and 2) commercially made products are usualy so weak that you could drink a whole bottle with no results.


Making them yourself assures they are fresh and potent.