Longtime customer Chuck Mason shared this video with us of him making tinctures with several of our herbs. And we thought we’d share it with you.
[Note from Logan: Personally, I do not advise making a tincture with Hercules. The herbs in that formula are already extract, most of them by water, so if you discard the powdered mass afterwards you’ll be throwing out certain beneficial parts that aren’t alcohol soluble. While it would still give some benefits, this is not the ideal way to do it. If you were to make this as a tincture ideally you would start with all of the raw herbs. But you could use the alcohol as a delivery vehicle, meaning you’re still keeping all the powdered mass in there.]If you’d like to read along, here is the complete transcript.
Okay guys today we’re here in Atlanta and we’re going to make some tinctures. Will show you how I make my tinctures and how I process tinctures, give you some ideas how to make really good tinctures for your training and for good health.
Ok, today we have the Herc and when I’m mixing the darker herbs like the Herc or any of the mixture I prefer to use either bourbon or rye a dark liquor. I just think that with the tinctures the better the alcohol you use the better your tincture is going to be, the better it will absorb into your system and you’ll get more benefit out of it. So what I do is first I get a wide out mason jar and I take the whole bag of the Herc and I pour it into the jar. Next thing I do is I’m using today rye whiskey. It’s smooth, it gives it a good taste, it’s easy to take and I’ve been experimenting some with different kinds of higher proof alcohol like grain alcohol and I’ll show you that in a minute, but poor the rye into the jar and I make sure that I cover the product.
After I cover the product I think it’s covered, I get the top of my jar and then I mix. And i’m looking to see, to kind of measure how much alcohol I have in, if i have enough. Sometimes like when you’re working with pine pollen you have to go back and add some alcohol because your texture’s too thick and you want to, you know, get as much benefit out of the pine pollen as you can. So what I’m going to do is go back and add just a little bit more rye whiskey, just enough to make sure that I have it completely mixed up. Put my top on again once again I’ll shake and if you follow me here you’ll see right here I have some I mixed up about three weeks ago, every day I give it a good shake and I’m trying to let it sit for close to a month. I give all my jars that I mixed up a good shake every day. It takes a little work to get the best tincture. Now I’ll keep them separated, I know these here are about three weeks old. This one here will be ready in about a month, about March the 4th it’ll be ready.
So now what I want to show you is how I mix up some of my Pine Pollen. With my Pine Pollen I’ve been experimenting with 180 grain alcohol, very strong alcohol but the good thing about it is when you are put the tincture on your tongue, it evaporates very quickly into your bloodstream and it seems to give you a better boost from the pine pollen. So what I’m going to do here is I’m going to take some of my pine pollen and I’m going to put it in my jar. Like I said before the pine pollen can be kind of fluffy, so you’ll pour alcohol on it you’ll mix it and then you’ll probably have to go back and add more.
You want to make sure that you don’t fill your jar too full so you have room for the alcohol. So what I’m going to do now is I’m going to take my everclear alcohol like 180 proof and it’s worked pretty well and I’m going to cover my pine pollen. And you see the pine pollen absorbs alcohol more in the herb. Once I have it covered I’ll get my lid, I’ll lift it from this jar we’re going to work with in a minute, I’ll put it over here I’ll shake it and I can tell you as I shake that the mixture’s a little thick so I’m going to add more alcohol to it.
Remove the top again, come back add just a little bit more alcohol. Give it a good shake. I normally write on top of my jar the product. Ff course you can tell it’s Pine Pollen, the alcohol I used whether it was a grain alcohol or the rye bourbon, JD honey works good we’ve had good results from it with a really good taste, and I write the date so that I know so I don’t forget when I mix it because like I said I like for it to sit for about a month. Then I add this up to my collection. Now what I’m going to do now is show you how I process. If you look I’ve got a jar of pine pollen I’ve been working with and also right here I have some Lion’s Mane. The Lion’s Mane was mixed with rye, the Pine Pollen with grain alcohol. My mixture, I make it shake a and what I do when I’m ready to process I take a beaker or you can get the coffee decanter or anything like that, a jar.
I take a filter, can makes coffee filter big filter also will use a funnel a lot of times, if you look at my pine pollen it has a funnel and a filter, okay. And I would put that there and I pull my product in. I don’t want any of the powder in my tincture. It makes my tincture taste better, it’s easier to take so now what I’ll do since I I’ve already mixed my pollen, I’ll pour it in here and if you look at the bottom it’s starting to come through, starting to sink through. Sometimes I will pour the mixture and let it sit for two days just so it will drain and I can get all the product out of the powder and as you see the pine pollen is coming through, we’ve been straining some all night and we’ve been making.
Here we have Lion’s Mane it’s strained all night, I can see this is rye whiskey. What I like to do when it’s getting close to getting finished, there’s still some alcohol inside the powder so what i will do is I’ll take a paper towel something I’ll get something heavy, a jar with liquid in it something like that and that you know if you want good tincture, you have to work for. So I’ll take and i’ll press and I’m trying to get and as you see there’s more of the tincture coming out, I want to press all the liquid out that I can and my opinion your good tincture it’s what’s left inside the powder, so you want to press it out to get the good tincture out.
I’ve tried a coffee press it doesn’t work as well, they don’t seem to the powders seem to be to fine so this is the best way I found is let it drain and then find something to press it with. Sometimes I’ll have a jar with a big book on top of it and i’ll leave it for of the powder and i want all the good tincture out so that i can use it. Once this is through, we’ll put it in a jar I’ll take two to three droppers before I train or during the day. The Pine Pollen I take before I train I’ll take three droppers and I found this very effective and the lion’s mane it’s very good for your reasoning and cognitive abilities, so I actually like to take it before I start work every day to help me with my memo, with my keep it focused to do my job.
So anyway that’s how I mix my tinctures, that’s how long I let my I mix my tinctures, I let my tinctures sit a month, I shake every day when I’m ready to process I get a funnel and a coffee filter and I pull through and then once I’ve got all the powder, then I start taking my time and pressing it out of the powder to get all my tincture out. So that’s how we do it here in Atlanta, thank you for your time and I hope you enjoy and I hope you make some good tinctures.
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Which powders are suitable for making a tincture from? I take bacopa, lions mane, and pine pollen. Are all of those okay to make tintures from without losing any of the beneficial properties?
Pine pollen, yes. Bacopa, no. Our current lion’s mane, yes, but we are actually switching what we carry in a few months to something that is dual extracted. Once that comes out, no.