Through the month of October we’re running specials on our herbal tinctures, so I thought it would make sense to kick off our new blogging page with some info on herbal tinctures. By the way, for those of you who – like me – don’t really understand why blogs are called blogs, I just looked it up and the word “blog” is short for “web log”. So it’s just a log of thoughts that you can read on the web. And now you’ve learned something new today! That is, unless you’re more technologically advanced than me and already knew that. In that case, keep reading and hopefully you’ll learn something.

Most of our herbal tinctures are suspended in grain alcohol. We have had several questions about this since the word “alcohol” is not necessarily something that people associate with the word “healthy.” The reason we use alcohol is that from a chemical standpoint, alcohol is the most effective solvent for extracting and preserving an herb’s active ingredients. This is very important for two reasons:

1. Extracts used in tinctures are made by soaking herbs in a solvent. If the solvent is not extracting the chemicals in the herb that give it the health-promoting qualities, what’s the point?
2. Once the active ingredients are extracted, you want to keep them stable so the benefits are preserved. Alcohol does this very well, which is why herbal extracts made with alcohol will maintain their potency indefinitely, assuming the container they’re stored in maintains its integrity.

We do carry several tinctures that are preserved in glycerin (a sweeter type of alcohol), but they are mostly intended for children and adults who can’t tolerate the taste of tinctures dissolved in grain alcohol.

Here is a trick you can use if you are sensitive to alcohol but still want the benefit of an alcohol-extracted tincture: put your dose of tincture in a small glass of water that has just been boiled and let it sit for 5 minutes before drinking. Alcohol has a low boiling point and this process allows the alcohol in the tincture to evaporate without affecting the active ingredients in the herbs.

Hopefully you’ve learned something new! If not, then keep checking this blog – we’ll update it weekly.

Related posts:

1. Herbal Tinctures
2. My Top Three Wellness Tinctures