Herbal Medicine 101 & Tincture-Making for Dummies

Herbal medicine is not only accessible to basically everyone who takes the time to learn about particular herbs and their uses, but it can be incredibly effective for a variety of conditions and ailments. Literally, all you have to do is walk out into your yard, and, unless you live in some crazy arid location, I guarantee that you will find a medicinally useful or edible plant – whether you know it at the moment or not! Just remember to be fully confident in your identification of the plant, compare multiple trustworthy sources, and do quality research. Furthermore, herbal medicine it is very versatile in its many forms and methods of preparation, since medicinal plants tend to have a multitude of useful compounds present within them that can be easily extracted by common substances such as water, alcohol, and oil (and, you can often just pluck them out of the ground and eat them raw). This week alone, I have identified at least three more species of edible plants growing in our yard, and I’ve been identifying plants like crazy since spring.

While Western medicine can be helpful in some situations due to its tendency to isolate singular compounds and then study them to the ends of the earth, it often gets a little too much credit because people aren’t aware of the medicinal uses of all of the free and highly effective plants right outside their doors. Some of these plants have been studied scrupulously, much to the level of contemporary scientific standards, and some have chemical compositions that mostly remain a mystery. While some of the compounds that are commonly prescribed (or offered over the counter) as medications have relatively few side effects and are hands-down beneficial to us, many of them have terrible side effects and unnatural additives in wonky proportions that can disturb our bodies’ physiological balance. They can often produce a more instantaneous effect with more detrimental long-term consequences. Many people opt for the instant gratification even when it can cause more complications down the road. This is where holistic health and herbal medicine come in.

Plants often work according to a principle called the ‘entourage effect,’ which refers to the insanely large number of natural compounds working together to produce physiological effects in the body. Again, some of these compounds are well-studied, and some are not, but there are MANY plants that have been tried, tested, and studied to determine that they are safe and beneficial for consumption or particular uses. Due to the entourage effect of plants, a large part of holistic and herbal health perspectives is focusing more on using plants over longer periods of time to prevent sickness and to ‘pull out the roots’ of the medical problems we face. I see it as more aligned with a healthy lifestyle. Much of Western medicine seems to be exclusively focused on treating problems once they arise, not putting people in a better position so that they don’t experience medical problems in the first place. Prevention really is the best medicine, no matter what medical philosophies you lean toward. I don’t recommend abandoning Western medicine, but I highly recommend pushing open the door to learning about the absolutely surprising and incredible healing power of plants.

Now that I’ve convinced you to become a hippie herbalist, follow me along the path of herbal witchery. Our first stop is tincture-making. In order to make tinctures, you need to find and correctly identify the plants that you would like to make medicines with. Plants are, for the most part, much easier to differentiate from one another than mushrooms, for example, but they can still be confusing. It is very important to identify plants correctly when using them as medicines, because plants that look very similar may not be closely related at all, and therefore may have very different compounds that could cause an unwanted or toxic reaction if used inappropriately. That’s why I like to identify plants multiple times, and then cross-check my identifications with multiple sources. I HIGHLY recommend the ‘PictureThis’ app for accurate plant identifications and helpful information. It is incredibly simple to use, and contains thorough information about even very rare and lesser-known plants. It tells you the common names, scientific classification, key facts, characteristics, descriptions, distributions, and even care guides for each species, and automatically saves all of your identified plants. It’s free for a certain number of identifications per day, but it’s the only app I pay money to subscribe to since I use it so often. Another great app is ‘Seek by iNaturalist’ (for animals, plants, insects, mushrooms, etc.), which I find a little less accurate but a great source to cross-check with. There are many trustworthy herbal books and guides out there as well, and it is best to find one that is suited to your particular region.

Herbs are typically categorized based on their ‘properties’ or ‘energetics,’ which describe how they affect the body when used. One very basic way to broadly divide herbs is into these twelve categories (taken from The Modern Herbal Dispensatory): 1. Pungent Herbs (spicy or sharp), 2. Aromatic Herbs (volatile oils), 3. Nonalkaloidal Bitters (cooling and drying), 4. Alkaloidal Bitters (specific effects on nerves and glandular systems), 5. Fragrant Bitters (warming and drying terpenes), 6. Acrid Herbs (bitter resins), 7. Astringent Herbs (constricting and drying tannins), 8. Sour Herbs (acids and flavonoids), 9. Salty Herbs (mild and balancing), 10. Sweet Herbs (benign polysaccharides or saponins), 11. Mucilant Herbs, a.k.a. Demulcents (slippery and moistening), 12. Oily Herbs (nourishing and fatty).

Some herbs are best suited for external use, in which case it might be better to use fresh herbs, dry the herbs and grind them into a powder, or make an oil-based salve or ointment. Otherwise, a vast majority of medicinal herbs are very well-suited to being made into tinctures (usually for internal use), where the medicinally useful compounds are extracted into the aforementioned substrate (‘menstruum’) of alcohol, water, oil, glycerin, vinegar, or even honey. This process is incredibly simple, as long as you aren’t confronted with too many creepy crawlies on your plant matter.

I will discuss one example recipe for making tinctures, although there are many degrees of freedom and different ways to make effective tinctures. Certain methods of tincture-making are more appropriate for certain types of plants, desired effects, or for extracting different kinds of compounds. Most tinctures are made using a higher-proof alcohol such as vodka in order to extract a good mix of tannins, flavonoids, resins, and alkaloids and to allow your tincture to last longer. St. John’s Wort flower (commonly used to improve mood), for example, is one herb that is well-suited to an oil or alcohol menstruum that is left in the sun for a few weeks to turn a gorgeous shade of red and undergo chemical reactions that create the most potent tincture, but most tinctures are best stored in a dark location. I made this creeping charlie (Glechoma hederacea) tincture about a month ago, when I had a bad cough and realized I needed to stock up on my respiratory tinctures. According to this National Library of Medicine study, “Glechoma hederacea L. is a medicinal plant that is known in traditional medicine for its anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antiviral, and anticancer properties.” It is known to help with coughs and has a high vitamin C content. This is the plant I will use for this recipe, and it’s a great one to start with since it grows everywhere!

Tincture-Making for Dummies (Recipe)

Making tinctures requires only a few simple materials:

• Medicinal herb plant matter (be sure to use the correct parts of the plant for the desired effect and for safety reasons); ex. creeping charlie leaves
• Mason jar with a leak-proof screw-on lid
• High-proof alcohol like vodka

Directions

1. Sort through plant material to make sure you have properly identified all of it.
2. Rinse the plant material well to wash away any dirt or insects. (Mullein leaf, for example, is very ‘hairy,’ so it’s important to wash the dirt and insects off thoroughly to get a clean tincture!)
3. Chop or rip the plant matter into small pieces — the more surface area to come into contact with the alcohol/menstruum, the better.
4. Pack the jar pretty tightly with the herb, allowing enough room for the alcohol, since this will more or less end up being the final amount of liquid in your tincture.
5. Pour in the alcohol so that it is covering the herb (the jar should be full).
6. Screw on the lid and give it a shake.
7. Place the tincture in a dark place for a few weeks up to a few months (I usually aim for 1-2 months), shaking regularly to expose more of the plant to the menstruum.
8. Filter the alcohol out from the plant matter using a fine strainer or cheesecloth. Be sure to squeeze the plant matter to extract all of the medicinally useful compounds from the herb.
9. Bottle the tincture in a dark glass bottle (I use amber bottles) and store in a cool, dark place!

Tinctures are incredibly useful, and they are great to have on hand to take regularly for preventative medicine, or for when you develop symptoms and need to dive into your apothecary for some herbal relief. Combination tinctures can be made for various ailments, for ease of use when particular symptoms present. A ‘respiratory tincture,’ for example, can be made using lungwort, mullein, and creeping charlie, and you can create your own personalized combinations based on your own research and what works best for you.

If you make your own tinctures or discover any medicinal herbs that work really well for you, please be sure to comment and share your experiences! It is so exciting to see other people who share the same passion and can share their knowledge and experiences about this endlessly interesting natural world.

-Josh