America has a grief problem.

More accurately, late-stage collapsing capitalism has a grief problem. That problem is, we’re taught to pretend like we don’t have it. If we do have it, if we are experiencing grief, it had better be from a handful of ‘acceptable’ causes—death of a family member or close friend, death of a beloved pet—it had better last only the acceptable amount of time—one to three bereavement days for a family member, you’re out of luck for everything else—and it had better not become anyone else’s problem. Grieving publicly where someone might see you? Depending on who you are, that someone might call the cops on you.

Anyone who’s experienced grief knows that it’s not tidy. You, reading this right now, know it’s not tidy. Grief is a jarring break with the way things were, an unmistakable proof that we cannot control our lives in the ways we’ve been conditioned to expect.

Maybe that’s why the powers that be work so hard to banish grief, deny its existence when and wherever possible and failing that, when grief inevitably oozes through the cracks of their vault, uncontainable as a key truth of its nature, they attempt to repackage it into something palpable, restrained, manageable.

We are not fooled.

When our hearts break open, experiencing loss, injustice, the thunderclap of shock that blackens the edges of our vision and muffles our hearing, the creak as the ship of our course is slowly torn asunder by the weight of witnessing, of realization…

We understand, intuitively, what our ancestors understood. Grief is the coinflip of love, with the power to power to drop us to our knees, to our stomachs, down to the land itself.

When we grieve, the illusions that drifted over us are pushed, pulled, wrenched aside, dissolved by heaving sobs and shredded by furious shrieks.

When we grieve, we create the expanse to dream, the space to invite into our lives the futures that could not even be seen beyond the illusions, nevermind conceived as possible.

When we grieve, when we acknowledge that which is no longer possible, we become aware of all that still is.

Grief, paradoxically, is a path to liberation. This is the foundation from which I serve.

This is a post in the 6 Categories of Herbal Remedies series. To read the previous post, go here.
To start from the beginning of the series, go here.

The final category of herbal preparation we’ll look at is–the herb itself! You don’t need to make teas, tinctures, salves, whatever, in order to work with herbs. Just the herb itself is enough.

While there are two preparations on this list that require equipment above and beyond what you probably just have around, the others are easily done. We’ll review the equipment-heavy two first.

Powder

Powdered herbs are often a component of other preparations more than a stand-alone remedy, often mixed with honey for pastes or lozenges. They can also be added to nut butters to make ‘herb balls’, a bite-sized snack with tasty benefits. Recipes abound on the internet, especially for ones formulated to give an energy boost, but my go-to is for heart/grief support:

Heart-love Herb Balls

2 parts linden
1 part hawthorn
1 part rose petals
1 part cacao
1 part almond butter (or your nut butter of choice)
1 part honey

Mix everything together until it forms a thick dough, then pinch off chunks and roll them into balls about an inch across, roughly the size of a walnut. Then roll the balls in additional powdered herb, I like more cacao for this but cinnamon is also delicious.

These are great to have around especially for that disassociative sort of grief that leaves you feel unmoored from everything, gently enfolding you in protection so you can experience what your body is trying to show you.

To powder herbs, you need an industrial powdering device, like a grinder or pulverizer–your vitamix will not cut it. The instructions will vary by machine, but generally you will end up with a smaller bag of powdered herb than the bag of unpowdered herb you started with.

Capsule

Another remedy that comes out of powdered herbs are capsules. Making capsules yourself can be a massive money-saving strategy, and for some people, capsules are the only way they’ll take herbs.

There are several downsides to capsules though:

• encapsulated herbs tend oxidize quickly and lose their potency
• some herbs aren’t suited to capsules (like bitter herbs when tasting the bitterness is part of the medicine)
• requires special equipment to make and is still a finicky, time-consuming process

Making capsules is easy enough on the surface: pour powdered herb into the longer half of an empty capsule, then cap. Repeat so many times. This goes much faster with a capsule maker, but even with one you are likely to get powder everywhere, so put down parchment paper or something similar to catch the powder that misses the capsules. Both empty capsules and a capsule maker can be sourced and purchased online.

Poultice

A poultice is basically moistened herbs wrapped against some part of the body. While it comes to mind for first aid situations–stings, sprains, etc–poultices are also my favorite way to handle muscle strains and pains.

Both fresh and dried herbs work for poultices. I’ve used dried seaweed for ankle wraps to deal with sprains, and fresh plantain bandaged directly against a bee sting after I kicked a bumblebee barefoot when not paying enough attention to where I walked.

Poultices are quick to put together and can be transportable when correctly wrapped in place against the body.

Smoke

Cultures around the world use aromatic smoke for medicine, blessings, and cleansing. Whether you’re working with an herb you know well in other formats or working with an herb primarily through smoke, the sensory experience can help reinforce the fact that you’re doing something ancient and sacred.

Since I am not Indigenous, I don’t work with white sage or attempt to smudge things–this is not my place or practice. Instead I look to my own ancestors’ traditions for guidance on which herbs to work with in smoke, such as juniper, cedar, pine, and mugwort.

To make a smoke bundle: take cuttings, 6-10″, of fresh plant and let it begin to dry for two or three days–this helps prevent molding. Then take twine and wrap it around the herbs up the length and then back down, tying the twine at the beginning and end. Once the bundle is completely dry, you can ignite one end, blow it out, and let the smoke from the embers rise. When you’re finished, snuff the embers by crushing them against a heat-proof plate or into sand.

Food

Incorporating herbs into food is easily one of my favorite ways to work with herbs. Food as medicine is an herbal approach well-known in TCM and Ayurveda. By taking what we know about herbs and working them into our mealtimes, we can expand our understanding of medicine and acknowledge the ways in which our food might already be medicine!

A good curry, for instance, is going to have medicinal doses of several herbs depending on the recipe. Chicken soup has survived the broader (white) societal loss of herbal knowledge and is still understoodas a nourishing dish that ‘cures what ails you”. Lots of garlic ‘helps with colds’ and many people will avoid dairy when congested to avoid increasing mucous. This kind of food knowledge is still trickling down through families, which speaks to the incredible staying power of herb medicine.

If you’re new to these traditions of food as medicine, an easy place to start is parsley. A bundle of fresh parsley from the store is roughly equivalent to a multi-vitamin and much cheaper–one of my favorite go-to recipes is simply to chop a bundle of parsley and add it to scrambled eggs or a quiche. Another easy adjustment is to simply double the herbs called for in a recipe–use your judgment and taste preferences when increasing any spicy herbs! (Note: do not double salt in recipes, as that might render the resulting food inedible.)

Another easy, popular food as medicine is bone broth. Bone broth has been touted as a ‘super food’, but really it’s an ancestral food borne out of people’s desires to not waste what was available to them. This versatile broth can accommodate many different herbs–an adaptogenic bone broth is listed below.

• Bones from any of the following: chicken, beef, pork, lamb
• Juice from 1 lemon
• 6 cloves of garlic (or more!)
• 1 onion, sliced
• Vegetable scraps
• 1/4 c to 1/2 c each of medicinal herbs:
  • Astragalus
  • Codonopsis
  • Kombu or other seaweed
  • Thyme
  • Other culinary medicinal herbs as you see fit!

Cover with water in a large pot, bring to a boil and then simmer, covered, for at least 6 hours and up to 48 hours. Strain out the solid pieces, bottle, and store!

If you don’t eat meat, never fear–you can make delicious, nourishing vegetarian broths using mushrooms as the base, or fish if that’s an option for you.

That concludes both our herb section of preparations and our series on herbal remedies! Which remedy is your favorite? Which are you eager to try?

This is the final post in the 6 Categories of Herbal Remedies series. To start from the beginning of the series, go here.

This is a post in the 6 Categories of Herbal Remedies series. To read the previous post, go here.
To start from the beginning of the series, go here.

Honey might be a sometimes overlooked remedy style, but it’s a delicious one with additional benefits from the honey itself. While not accessible to everyone–real raw honey is both expensive and hard to find in food deserts–honey can add a medicinal sweetness to many preparations. Honey is also a natural preservative, so these remedies will last.

Honey itself has several medicinal properties¹: it is antimicrobial and antibacterial, helps accelerate wound healing (including ulcers, burns, and infected wounds), and is anti-inflammatory and antioxidant. Manuka honey is ideal for our medicines, though it is pricey. Other honeys are also good, provided they are pure honey and not diluted with corn syrup.

Honey’s medicinal properties have even led to the development of a sterile honey–“medihoney”–for use in hospitals against drug-resistant bacteria.

There’s a ongoing debate in herbal circles about whether or not you should heat up honey, and if you do heat up honey, to what temperature. Some herbalists swear that you shouldn’t heat honey over 120*F; other traditions have the honey heated to just under boiling. The honey heating question is more than we can cover here today, but if you want to hear more about this to reach your own conclusions, drop me a comment to let me know!

Honey

Herbal honeys are simple to make and delicious to eat, and the sweetness can help make certain herbs more palatable. Honey will absorb all the volatile oils and water-soluble components in the herb because honey is hydroscopic–this means it collects water.

It also means that if you use fresh herbs, they’ll crystalize with sugars from the honey! So making ginger honey also makes candied ginger–how cool is that! But if you don’t have fresh herbs, don’t worry–you can make herbal honeys with dried herbs too.

To make herbal honey: put your herb(s) of choice into a wide-mouthed jar (if the herbs are fresh, chop them up first), and then pour in enough honey to cover all of the plant matter. Depending on how thick your honey is, you might need to use a spoon or chopstick or similar kitchen implement to help get the honey all the way through the herbs. Cover, label, and ignore for up to six weeks. Then your honey is ready! You don’t even need to remove the herbs if you don’t want to. An herbal honey will last functionally forever; honey doesn’t go bad.

Syrup

Elderberry syrup is probably one of the most famous herbal syrups, but you can make syrups out of more than just elderberries. Syrups, like most of the preparations covered in this section, are a great way to make less delicious herbs more palatable or simply more appealing in general. They’ll last in the fridge for easily a month, or you can add an alcohol like brandy or even tinctures, which will help preserve it.

To make herbal syrup: start with a concentrated decoction (using 4 parts water to 1 part herb and cook until it’s evaporated down to 2 parts). Strain out the herb and return the decoction to the pot on the stove, heating gently as you stir in your honey until dissolved–use 1 part honey for every 2 parts of decoction. If you want to add alcohol, add around 1/4 cup for every 1 cup of syrup.

Elixir

An elixir is a tincture plus a sweetener, like honey. (Maple syrup or molasses would also work!) Again, this is a good strategy to help deal with the strong taste of some herbs, but I also like the touch of sweetness for blends meant for grief or periods of high stress, when we naturally crave a little more sweetness in our lives.

I tend to mix in my honey after I’ve made the tincture, but you could also decide to add the honey to the beginning of the tincture process. In that case, you’ll want to go with either equal parts alcohol and honey, or 1 part honey 3 parts alcohol (1:3 ratio).

To make elixirs: fill a jar 2/3s of the way with your herb, then fill half the jar with honey, and the remaining half with alcohol. (Alternatively, fill a 1/3 of the jar with honey, and the rest with alcohol.) Cover, label, and let sit for four weeks, then strain out the herb. You could also add honey to a tincture after the fact.

Oxymel

If elixirs are tinctures plus sweetener, then oxymels are vinegars plus sweetener. Your favorite fire cider? Yup, you can add honey to that. Digestive bitters made as oxymels can also help the medicine go down for people sensitive to the bitterness, but remember that the bitterness is the medicine, so don’t completely drown it out with sweet.

Like with elixirs, you can add honey to a vinegar afterwards to make an oxymel, or infuse them together.

To make oxymels: fill a jar 2/3s of the way with your herb, then fill a 1/3 of the jar with honey, and the rest with vinegar. (You want a 2:1 ratio, vinegar to honey.) Cover, label, and let sit for four weeks, then strain out the herb.

Pastes

Pastes are a great way to preserve the potency of herbs for a long time and often seem like a treat to take. They’re also incredibly easy to make!

To make honey pastes: stir powdered herbs into warmed honey at a 1:5 ratio (1 part powdered herb for 5 parts honey–replace ‘part’ with your measurement of choice). Stir for 15 minutes, longer than you’ll think you need to, which will help it not clump when it cools. Pour into a jar, label, and seal.

Lozenges

Related to pastes, you can make herbal lozenges–think homemade cough drops! They’ll keep for 6 months to a year in a tightly sealed container.

To make herbal lozenges: mix enough powdered herb into your honey until it’s too thick to stir and looks more like dough. Then pinch off pieces and roll them into little balls no bigger than the last digit of your index finger, and roll them in additional powdered herb until they’re coated. (This prevents them from sticking to each other and everything else under the sun.)

Sweet sweet honey, sweet sweet herbal medicine. Which honey-based preparation is your favorite?

This is the fifth post in the 6 Categories of Herbal Remedies series.

¹ Mandal MD, Mandal S. Honey: its medicinal property and antibacterial activity. Asian Pac J Trop Biomed. 2011 Apr;1(2):154-60. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3609166/

This is a post in the 6 Categories of Herbal Remedies series. To read the previous post, go here.
To start from the beginning of the series, go here.

Preparing herbs with oils is a gateway to a variety of herbal remedies, making customization easy and rewarding. Many oil-based remedies are topical, meaning that they go on the outside of your body rather than the inside. This is an ideal way to target external situations like skin issues, but it’s also a way to work with herbs you might not be able to handle internally for whatever reason (looking at you, St John’s wort).

Your end goal will help you decide things like what kind of oil to use in the preparation, so let’s look at some options.

• Olive: an ideal all-purpose oil especially if you’re starting out and aren’t sure what to use. It’s particularly good for dry skin, easy to find, and relatively inexpensive compared to other oils. Depending on exactly what herb you’re working with, you might end up adding herbal olive oils to food too. Downsides: olive oil will stain the ever-loving heck out of fabrics and is incredibly difficult to get out.
• Coconut: pretty easy to find now and days, coconut has inherent anti-fungal qualities. Working with it a lot can be drying, so if you’re looking for something particularly moistening, maybe skip the coconut.
• Lard/tallow: source from healthy animals! They’re similar to human fats, so our body utilizes them fairly easily.
• Lanolin: source from health sheep! Lanolin is a byproduct of processing wool and therefore it doesn’t harm the sheep to procure it. It’s also similar to human fats, though some people find the scent off-putting.
• Almond: lighter than olive oil, which is helpful if you or someone else has texture/sensory issues around feeling greasy. Almond smells wonderful and it’s easier to wash out of fabrics than olive oil.
• Grapeseed: even lighter than almond, aim for cold-pressed to minimize rancidness.
• Jojoba/shea butter/cocoa butter: very moistening, also very thick. Can get pricey quickly, especially if you’re prioritizing sustainable sourcing, but they also have their own medicinal benefits
• Rosehip/argan/sea buckthorn: like the above, these are very costly, though they have their own medicinal benefits. These tend to show up in cosmetic/skin care herbal remedies. Investigate the production methods to make sure the very act of producing them doesn’t make them rancid.

Infused Oil

Infused oils have a similar preparation method to tinctures, and like tinctures there’s a standard method and a faster method. You can make oils with dried herbs, though fresh herbs are usually preferred. If using fresh herbs, let them wilt a little before you start the oil–this helps ensure that nothing molds.

To make an oil the standard way: take a jar and fill it between a 1/4 to 3/4 of the way with your chosen herb, then add oil until you have about an inch of oil covering over the herbs. (You might need to wait for the herbs to settle to make sure there’s enough oil.) Then cap, label, and wait 4 to 6 weeks, depending on how strong you want the oil, and strain, keeping the oil and discarding (or composting!) the herbs. Voila! An infused herbal oil.

The faster method is to gently heat your herb and oil for 8 to 24 hours. You can do this in an oven-safe container in an oven set to the lowest possible temperature, or in a crock pot/slow cooker set to low. I have a small crock pot dedicated to making herbal oils, but that is not necessary.

The low heat is important to ensure that the oil doesn’t go rancid from overheating

Once you have herbal oils, you can use them as is or transform them into other preparations!

Salve

Salves are essentially herbal oil plus chopped beeswax and slow heat. Salves have the benefit of being easier to transport and less messy than oils, and for some the texture works better for sensory concerns. They will melt if they get too hot though, so keep that in mind for transport.

To make salve: warm your oil either in a pot on the stove or in a crock pot/slow cooker set to low. Add your chopped beeswax and stir til it’s melted. To test consistency, dip a spoon in and stick it in the freezer for 5 minutes or so to make it set. If it’s too soft, you can add more beeswax; if it’s too hard, add more oil. This is very much a preference thing, so adjust the consistency until you’re satisfied. 1/4c of beeswax to 1c oil (a .25:1 ratio) is a good starting point.

You can buy cute little tins or small jars to pour the finished salve into, or you could reuse any old empty jar you have around the house, as long as it’s clean.

(Fair warning, as you get more and more into making your own herbal preparations, you will begin to amass quite the old empty jar collection. Try to cull it once a year to save yourself some space.)

Lotion

If salves are herbal oil plus beeswax and slow heat, then lotions are herbal oil plus “water” and a blender. “Water” is in quotes here because it doesn’t need to be regular spring water–it could be rose water, orange blossom water, witch hazel (without alcohol), other flower water, herbal tea, etc.

Lotions don’t melt like salves–point in their favor–and it can also be a better sensory alternative to pure oils. They’re also incredibly quick to make, once you have the ingredients. But these lotions are food grade, so they’ll only last a few months. (This can be extended by using rosehip tea water for your lotion, the vitamin C will help preserve it!)

To make lotion: put one cup max of “water” into the blender, put the lid on and run it until the water is frothy. Then take the lid off, run the blender on the lowest speed, and slowly add the oil in a thin stream until it’ll all added. Use roughly the same amount of oil as you did water, less if you want a thick lotion, more if you want a thinner lotion. The sound will change abruptly to something gloopy-sounding–it’s a very distinct sound. Turn off the blender and check the consistency. If it’s good for you, then your lotion is done!

So those are some oil-based herbal remedies! Salves and especially lotions can be elaborate, but hopefully these simple approaches will help them not be intimidating.

Have you made an herbal oil, salve, or lotion before? How did it turn out?

This is the fourth post in the 6 Categories of Herbal Remedies series. To read the next post, go here.

This is a post in the 6 Categories of Herbal Remedies series. To read the previous post, go here.
To start from the beginning of the series, go here.

Alcohol preparations are some of the most common herbal remedies to find in stores, second only to capsules. For tinctures, they’re easy to carry, quick to take, require only small amounts to be effective, and the effects can be pretty immediate depending on the herb. Alcohol preparations are also shelf stable and can last five years or longer if stored correctly (out of direct sunlight.)

Of course, alcohol is not an option for everyone–for people who can’t have alcohol, glycerites make a good substitute.

Buying tinctures can be a little pricey, which puts them out of reach for many people. Thankfully they’re easy to make at home for a fraction the cost. The downside is that they take several weeks to be ready, so if you need a particular herbal tincture now, you can either opt for store-bought or the percolation method (which we’ll cover below.)

Tinctures

The method of tincture making discussed here is sometimes call the folk method or the simple maceration method. It’ll work for most herbs, and I’ll note the exceptions.

To make tincture: take a jar and fill it between a 1/4 to 3/4 of the way with your chosen herb, then add alcohol until you have about an inch of alcohol covering over the herbs. (You might need to wait for the herbs to settle to make sure there’s enough alcohol.) Then cap and wait 4 to 6 weeks, depending on how strong you want the tincture, and strain, keeping the liquid and discarding (or composting!) the herbs.

(You might’ve noticed that this is almost identical to the method of preparing vinegars–and you’re right!)

But what kind of alcohol to use?

For most herbs, vodka or brandy works just fine, any 80 to 100 proof alcohol. I like to tincture rose in brandy, and vodka for basically everything else. You can get creative too–if you’re tincturing herbs to help with urinary issues, try tincturing them in gin, which already contains juniper (urinary antiseptic). There are a few practical considerations too:

• If you want to extract resins, use grain alcohol (95%). Woody medicinal mushrooms like reishi or chaga also extract better in grain alcohol
• If you want to extract mucilagens (viscous polysaccharides like one finds in cinnamon or marshmallow root), use water with just enough alcohol to stop it from molding (20%)
• You can tincture in wines! Keep in mind that 20% alcohol is the minimum needed to preserve the remedy and make it shelf stable

I make tinctures via the folk method described here, but if you want to get more technical with it using weight measurements and ratios, I recommend Richo Cech’s book, Making Plant Medicine. He has ratios specific to individual herbs, but that level of granularity isn’t necessary if you don’t want to go there. The folk method will give you effective tinctures too.

Math will be needed if you don’t want to wait 4 weeks for your tincture though, because you can use the percolation method.

Percolation

Percolation is a way of preparing tinctures quickly that trades time for simplicity. In other words, you can make a tincture fast, but it’s more complicated than the folk method, both in the steps and in the equipment required.

First you will need a percolation funnel, which can be made at home using a glass bottle and a glass cutter (here’s a picture of a homemade percolation funnel), and a coffee filter. Percolation also requires powdered herbs–while it’s possible to powder dried herbs at home, you need a heavy-duty blender for it. (Your Vitamix is not enough!)

Now we do the math. Decide how strong you want the final tincture to be (1:2 and 1:4 ratios are common). If you want 1:4, you will need four times the amount of vodka as you have powdered herbs. So, for 4oz of powdered herb, you’ll need 16oz of vodka. You will also need around half that much additional vodka for the premoistening step.

On to the making (this one gets a bullet list for being complicated):

• Mix the powdered herb with the vodka set aside for premoistening, you want a consistency like crumbly sand. Let that sit over night–this prevents your ratio from getting thrown off, since the powder will absorb this initial vodka.
• Take your coffee filter, fold it in half and in half again so it looks like a quarter of a circle (or a slice of pie), then peel one layer away from the others so it makes a cone-shaped filter. Put the filter into the funnel, wet it with a bit of vodka so it sticks to the sides.
• Pack the filter with powdered herb, loosely towards the bottom and more firmly as you fill it. Don’t fill above the filter, and try to level out the packed surface as much as possible
• Put the funnel into the percolation collection jar, and slowly pour the vodka in. You might need to pour it in batches, waiting for the vodka to seep in.
• Vodka will start dripping through the funnel! Great, this is as planned–you can tighten or loosen the cap to adjust the flow of the dip. You want about one drip per second.
• When all the vodka has drained through (several hours later), you can bottle and label it with the ratio (otherwise you will forget. Anyways it’s just good practice.)

Of course, these all presume that alcohol is an option. For many people it’s not, for a variety of reasons. This is where glycerites come in!

Glycerites

Glycerites are tinctures made from glycerine, a sweet, clear, flavorless liquid extracted from vegetable oils. They are not quite as potent as alcohol tinctures, but are still effective. Many are also delicious!

Making a glycerite is functionally the same as making an alcohol tincture, but there’s a small difference between working with fresh vs dried herbs.

To make a glycerite: if using fresh herbs, simply fill a jar with the herbs and add enough glycerine to cover them. If using dried herbs, fill a jar half way with herbs, then dilute the glycerine 3:1 with water (three parts glycerine, one part water), and cover the herbs to within one inch of the top of the jar (the dried herbs will expand as they steep). In both cases, then cap the jar and let it sit for 4 to 6 weeks; then strain out the herbs, keeping the liquid.

So that's the how and why of alcohol-based herbal preparations, and an alcohol-free option! Tinctures will show up again as an ingredient in other preparations, so I hope this helps you learn this widely-familiar preparation style!

What are your go-to tinctures? Have you made glycerites before?

This is the third post in the 6 Categories of Herbal Remedies series. To read the next post, go here.

aThis is the second post in the 6 Categories of Herbal Remedies series. To read the previous post, go here.
To start from the beginning of the series, go here.

Vinegars were some of the first preparations I ever made as a beginner herbalist. Flavorful, versatile, and accessible in multiple ways, vinegars take several weeks to prepare, but the trade-off is a remedy that’s portable and quick to take.

Herbal vinegars deliver not only benefit from the herbs steeped in them, but also from the vinegar itself. Apple cider vinegar (ACV) is the most common choice of vinegar for herbal preparations–it helps improve digestion by stimulating bile production and providing probiotics, and over time it can help lower blood glucose levels₁.

Vinegar is also better than alcohol when you want a high mineral content. For herbs like nettles, dandelion leaf, red clover, horsetail, etc, vinegar helps extract more minerals than you would get from an infusion or a tincture. Vinegar is also accessible to people who can’t have alcohol. And for herbs you plan to work with long-term, it can be nice to opt for a bit of vinegar rather than alcohol every day.

Vinegars are also shelf stable! Once you remove the herbs, the resulting vinegar will be good for six months to a year, even without refrigeration.

Making herbal vinegars is easy: take a jar and fill it between a 1/4 and 3/4 of the way with your chosen herbs, then add vinegar until you have about an inch of vinegar over the herbs. (You might need to wait for the herbs to settle to make sure there’s enough vinegar.) Then cap and wait 2 to 6 weeks, depending on how strong you want the vinegar, and strain.

You might have already heard of the herbal world’s most famous vinegar preparation: fire cider! Contrary to the name, fire cider is non-alcohol, a vinegar blend that’s spicy, immune-boosting, and sure to heat you up from the inside out.

There are probably as many fire cider recipes are there are herbalists, but my blend goes something like this:

• a head of garlic, peeled and crushed
• 5″ of horseradish, peeled and chunked
• an onion, roughly chopped
• a cayenne pepper (or jalapeño)
• 5″ of ginger, peeled and sliced
• 2″ of turmeric, peeled and chunked
• Lemon, chunked
• Sprigs of rosemary
• Sprigs of thyme
• Sprigs of oregano
• Apple cider vinegar

All these plants go into a jar and I add enough apple cider to cover everything, then cap and ignore for 4 to 6 weeks. I filled two half gallon jars last time I made fire cider–it lasts! If you don’t have all these ingredients, you can leave them out–the recipe is easy to tweak to your tastes.

Herbal vinegars: easy to put together with a tasty end result, whether you take the vinegar internally or use it externally, like in a skin care routine. Vinegars form the base of other remedies we'll cover later, so give them a try!

What herbal vinegars have you made before? What vinegars do you want to make?

This is the second post in the 6 Categories of Herbal Remedies series. To read the next post, go here.

Footnote 1: Kausar, S., Humayun, A., Ahmed, Z., Abbas, M.A., & Tahir, A. Effect of Apple Cider Vinegar on Glycemic Control, Hyperlipidemia and Control on Body Weight in Type 2 Diabetes Patients. International Journal of Medical Research and Health Sciences. 2019; 8:59-74.

This is a post in the 6 Categories of Herbal Remedies series. To read the intro post, go here.

Short of just eating an herb outright, water-based preparations are some of the easiest and most versatile ways to work with an herb. It does require access to clean water, which is not a given for many people around the world, including in our own communities or neighboring communities. We all have a responsibility to protect waterways and sources, so I encourage you to keep this in mind as you work with these herbal remedies.

Let’s take a look at how to prepare the different kinds of water preparations.

Tea

There’s a technical argument that herbs cannot make a ‘tea’, because only the Camellia sinensis plant, the tea plant, counts as tea. But I reject that idea, because in the context of herbalism a tea is a type of preparation.

Tea is made by steeping the aerial parts of a plant–leaves, flowers, non-woody stems–in just barely boiling water for only a few minutes, often no more than five. Because of the shorter steeping time, teas are often not as medicinally potent as infusions, but they’ll still have an effect. You might opt for a tea when you don’t have the time for an infusion, or if you want a gentler flavor than what you’d get from an infusion.

To make tea: pour just barely boiling water over 1 teaspoon of dried herb (or 1 tablespoon fresh) per 1 cup of water; steep, preferably covered, for 5 minutes. Strain before drinking.

Infusions

Infusions are probably the most common water preparation, and many herbalists use the terms tea and infusion interchangeably. For clarity’s sake, I differentiate–the biggest difference between the two is time.

Like tea, infusions are for the aerial parts of a plant (leaves, flowers, non-woody stems), but unlike tea, infusions can steep anywhere from twenty minutes to several hours, even overnight! Infusions that steep for several hours or overnight are called long infusions, and they are especially appropriate for plants with high nutrient amounts, like nettles or violets.

To make an infusion: pour just barely boiling water over 1 tablespoon of dried herb (or 2 tablespoons fresh) per 1 quart of water; steep covered for at minimum 20 minutes, and up to 8 hours. Strain before drinking. (Mason jars or a dedicated french press work great for this!) You can also make a cold infusion by following these same steps, just substituting hot water for cold–in that case, you’ll want to let the infusion steep on the longer side.

Decoctions

Decoctions are another tea-like preparation, but for different parts of the plant. Decoctions are for ‘hard’ parts of a plant–barks, dried berries, roots, woody stems, and seeds–which need more continuous heat to help extract their medicinal properties.

To make a decoction: add 1 tablespoon of dried herb (or 2 tablespoons fresh) per 1 quart of water to a pot on the stove, cover; turn the heat on high and bring to a boil, then drop the heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes. Strain before drinking.

But what if I want to make a drink that contains both aerial parts and hard parts?

Make the decoction first! Then bring it back up to a boil and use that as the water to steep your infusion.

Washes

Washes are like infusions or decoctions but used externally. When I hear ‘herbal wash’ I immediately think of herbal wound wash, like washing out a cut or scrape with rose water. But first aid is not the only time to use a wash–washes have their place in skin care routines, not just cleaning but also tonifying.

To make a wash: follow the instructions for an infusion, if you’re working with the aerial parts of an herb; if you’re working with roots/bark/dried fruit/seeds, follow the instruction for a decoction. You can keep it in the refrigerator for a few days.

Baths

Baths are for me the most time-intensive water preparation, even if prepping them is relatively simple. Baths (and soaks, which are like baths but smaller, only for a specific area like hands or feet) are ideal for external situations. But since our skin is our largest organ, we also absorb the herbal properties into our bodies as well. You’ll want the water as hot as you can tolerate, as this will open the pores and help absorb the medicine.

To make a bath: follow the instructions for an infusion or decoction, depending on the parts of the herb you’re working with. For a soak, you can use two cups of infusion; for a full bath, you’ll want at least a quart of infusion to pour in. Strain out the herbs first so you don’t clog the drain.

Steams

Steams are my favorite way to handle colds and respiratory illnesses, but they also help with face and eye issues too. Many of our antimicrobial herbs like thyme and oregano are antimicrobial on contact, which means that the aromatic oils of the plant need to actually encounter microbes to kill them. By inhaling the fragrant steam, we can get the medicine exactly where it needs to be.

To make a steam: bring a pot of water to a boil, two quarts is enough; remove from heat and place on a pot holder or heat-proof surface; drape a towel over your head and around the pot, to make a tent that catches the steam, then add 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup of herbs to the pot and breathe deeply. Remain under the towel tent until the steam naturally lessens, around 10 to 15 minutes.

Compresses

A compress is simply an infusion/decoction-soaked bandage or cloth applied to the skin. Compresses are helpful for areas that are hard to soak, like the back of the neck or an elbow, or when you don’t have time to sit in a bath. They’re also more portable. My favorite compress is for sore muscles or spasms.

To make a compress: make an infusion or decoction, strain out the herbs, then soak a cloth in the water and take it out. Let it cool just enough that you can comfortably touch it, then put it over the area and cover with a dry cloth, then hang out for 20 minutes. You can repeat this multiple times, but if you’re using a compress on a wound or external skin issue, you need a fresh cloth each time.

Those are water preparations in a nutshell! Many of them are based off of infusions and decoctions, so if you learn those, you're well on your way to knowing all of them.

Which water preparations is your favorite? Which new ones do you want to try?

This is the first post in the 6 Categories of Herbal Remedies series. To read the next post, go here.

This is the intro post in the 6 Categories of Herbal Remedies series. To read the next post, go here.

One of the best things about herbalism is how versatile it is. Beyond the incredible number of plants we can work with, there are also multiple different ways to prepare each herb. But how do we choose which preparation method?

Once you’ve figured out which herbs to work with, determining preparation is next. Preparation will depend on a few different things: how fast do you need a remedy? What tools do you have? What’s the situation you need the remedy for? Are there any preparations that work best for the herbs in question? Plus client (and personal!) preference.

Let’s look at common preparation methods and when you might want to choose them. They’re broken roughly into categories based on what else you need to prepare them: water, alcohol, vinegar, honey, oil, or just the plant itself.

Water!

Tea, infusions, decoctions, washes, baths, compresses, and steams

Water is by far the most versatile way of preparing herbs, with many possibilities stemming from the same basic idea: stick herbs in water, then do something with the resulting water (and sometimes remaining herbs). Many of the constituents in a number of herbs are water-soluble, so you don’t need additional ingredients beyond the water and herb.

Differences in water temperature, length of steeping/infusion time, and what’s done with the resulting remedy means that water preparations can be helpful for many different situations. From internal complaints (for which we’d look towards teas, infusions, and decoctions) to external complaints (for which we’d turn to washes and compresses), water-based herbal remedies are inexpensive and multi-purpose. 

(Baths and steams exist in a liminal space where they affect the internal and external almost simultaneously—extra cool!)

Water preparations are also often the most accessible option, since for many people, access to water is plentiful. However as we know from Flint, Michigan, and far too many Indigenous reservations, clean drinking water is not as accessible as it should be. In those instances, there are other preparations we can work with.

Vinegar!

Vinegar is another accessible option, widely found even in food deserts. Vinegar can draw out even more constituents from plants than water due to its acidity, so for herbs where you want the alkaloids or high mineral contents available in the remedy, vinegar is a good choice. Herbal vinegars are also more shelf-stable that water-based remedies—water remedies last only two days at most, but herbal vinegars will last at least six months and can last up to several years.

Herbal vinegars are prepared like tinctures (stick herbs in vinegar, wait four weeks or longer), but they can be consumed by people who cannot have alcohol. The vinegar, especially apple cider vinegar, adds its own medicinal benefit to the remedy as well, and makes a pleasant option for remedies you plan on consuming daily. Plus, herbal vinegars are an ingredient for other remedies.

Alcohol!

Alcohol-based tinctures are an extremely popular method of working with herbs, and for good reason: alcohol is widely available; tincture doses are small, meaning more medicine from less herb; and they can last years if stored correctly. The dropper bottles most often used for tinctures also make them especially portable. 

Making tinctures can be an involved process involving math and ratios, or a simpler ‘folk’ method like with vinegar (stick herbs in alcohol, wait four weeks or longer). Experimentation will help you find your preferences here.

Alcohol is key when working with resins and some medicinal mushrooms. Glycerites—tinctures made from glycerin instead of alcohol—are another solution for people who can’t have alcohol for whatever reason, but glycerin will not make resins medicinally-available in the remedy. Like vinegars, tinctures are also an ingredient for other remedies. 

Oil!

Oils, salves, liniment, and lotions

Herbal oils are made similarly to vinegars and the folk method of tincturing: stick wilted or dried herbs in oil, wait four weeks or longer. However, unlike the tinctures and vinegars, the process can be sped up with an application of gentle heat over several hours, which is a quick turn-around from ‘need oil’ to ‘have oil’. 

The type of oil used will depend on what additional medicinal benefits you want or what’s most appropriate for the recipient, in the case of making an oil with someone specific in mind. Olive oil is widely available and inexpensive (though nigh impossible to remove from fabric, in my experience); almond oil washes out well and is absorbed quickly (which might be helpful for people with sensory concerns), but it’s more expensive. Experimentation here will again allow you to figure out your preferences.

Herbal oils form the basis for salves (add beeswax), lotions (blend with water), and liniments (mix in some tincture)—all of which are external remedies. Herbal oil by itself can be an external or internal remedy, depending on the herbs involved.

Honey!

Syrups, elixirs, oxymels, pastes, and lozenges

Honey is a delicious if somewhat costly herbal remedy, but one that brings amazing medicinal benefits itself. Herbal remedies with honey can be an excellent way to make herbs more palatable, whether this is through herbal honeys or adding honey to other remedies. Tinctures with added honey are elixirs, and vinegars with added honey are oxymels. Honey can also be used to make herbal syrups, popular with children and adults alike, plus pastes and lozenges (think cough drops!)

Raw honey is ideal, but honestly if you can’t find raw honey or it’s out of your budget, you can use processed honey. Both raw and processed honey will draw moisture out of any herbs you put in it, leaving you with herbal honey and candied herbs, yum!

Herb!

Poultice, powders, capsules, smoke, and food

Last but not least is working with the herb itself, often times minimally processed. Some herbs can be eaten raw or cooked in various foods—garlic mustard pesto, fresh dill in hollandaise, nettle soup!—to name a few. Fresh herbs can also be bruised and wrapped against the skin in a poultice. Dried herbs can be powdered and put into capsules, or the powder can be mixed into honey, nut butters, ghee, or other food stuffs and eaten. Dried herbs can also be dried and burned as smoke.

For many herbs commonly thought of as weeds or which can otherwise be foraged, these preparation methods can be extremely accessible. Powdered herbs are the exception, since most people don’t have the kind of heavy-duty grinder necessary to powder herbs. (No, the coffee grinder isn’t strong enough.) Powdered herbs are easy to add to other remedies, including food, so the trade-off comes down to cost vs versatility. 

So that’s six broad categories of preparations—we’ll get into specific details in other posts. What are your favorite kinds of preparations? Least favorite or least utilized? Let me know in the comments!

This is the intro post in the 6 Categories of Herbal Remedies series. To read the next post, go here.

Digestive troubles don’t care if you run hot and damp, cold and dry, hot and dry, or cold and damp–they happen to all of us! But with so many digestive herbs naturally running cool and dry, that can be aggravating for those of us who also run cool and dry.

If you’re dealing with an acute digestive problem, like diarrhea, balancing the qualities of your herbs with your constitution will be less important than balancing your herbs with the quality of the problem. (Diarrhea will want astringent herbs to tighten up the mucous membranes whether you tend towards tension or not, for instance.)

With longer-term support, we want to make sure that we aren’t accidentally aggravating our constitutions. As someone who runs cold and dry, I only work with nettles in formulation with moistening herbs, because nettles dries me out to the point of dry mouth and dry skin!

Many many of the favorite digestive herbs are cooling and drying, especially the bitters which are so good at improving digestion. This can be tricky for those of us running cold and dry, so let’s look at herbs to improve digestion are warming or moistening, and in some cases both!

Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)

Top of the list is fennel! Yup, this humble kitchen spice is a fantastic digestive-supporting herb. Fennel is both warming and moistening, so if you run cold and dry, this is a good choice. You can work with fennel by adding it directly to your food, or in tea–either plain or with other herbs. Fennel relieves gas and bloating (one reason we see it in traditional sauerkraut!), and it’s also antispasmodic, helping with intestinal cramping. Fennel also stimulates the liver some to produce more bile, which in turn makes it easier for us to digest and utilize fats!

Licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra)

Another warming and moistening herb, licorice comes in behind fennel on this list only because I personally struggle with the taste of licorice. But whether you love or hate the taste of licorice, it has a strong anti-inflammatory action on the gut. If you’re running dry and irritable with cranky guts, the moistening affect of licorice will help soothe and repair the mucous membranes. Licorice will also bring down inflammation in the liver, restoring damaged liver tissue.

Please note that long-term work with licorice isn’t recommended if you have high-blood pressure.

Cinnamon (Cinnamomum cassia, C. verum, C. burmanii)

Cinnamon is a fascinating herb: if you work with it dry, it’s drying; if you work with it in tea, it’s moistening! In both cases, cinnamon is warming, so cinnamon tea can help get cold, sluggish digestion moving. The warmth is diffusive, meaning cinnamon will help spread warmth outwards and throughout the body too.

Cinnamon has noticeable effects on blood sugar levels, so if you are taking blood sugar-regulating medicine, do not work with more than 6mg of cinnamon a day.

Chamomile (Matricaria recutita)

Surprise! Chamomile doesn’t just make you sleepy, it also has vulnerary (wound-healing) action on the gut! Chamomile is one of the rare herbs that isn’t moistening or drying, and it’s warming, so it’s a good choice here. To get these good vulnerary and anti-spasmodic effects in the gut, you’ll need a strong cup of tea–like four teabags’ worth of strong. Strongly-brewed chamomile becomes bitter, which is how you know it’s strong enough–remember that bitter flavor is part of the digestive support! Bitter is good~

Consider working with chamomile in the evenings to help you get to sleep easier, rather than first thing in the morning or before needing to drive.

(If you want to learn more about chamomile’s non-sleepy actions, you can read a full monograph here.)

Ginger (Zingiber officinale)

You probably don’t need me to tell you that ginger is hot! It’s also drying, so this is one you’ll want to mix with other, moistening herbs to counterbalance that. Ginger is excellent for warming up sluggish digestion and getting things moving, and also helps with nausea. Another herb with anti-spasmodic effects, ginger helps with gut cramping and pairs deliciously with chamomile.

Ginger has a blood-thinning effect, so don’t work with it if you’re already taking blood-thinning medications.

These are just a few warming, moistening herbs we can work with to improve digestion, for those of us that run cool and dry. They can be added to other digestive blends to help balance out the cooling, drying nature of many bitter digestives, or you can work with these herbs alone or in combination.