Let me explain: the process of making a tincture is quite simple. First, we harvest the herbs, dry them, and (in most cases) remove the stems. Next, we put them in a glass jar along with a menstruum, or solvent. Common menstruums we use are alcohol, vegetable glycerine, and vinegar. We let the solvent do it's work of drawing out the medicinal properties of the herbs for a few weeks or even months. Then we strain out the herbs and squeeeeeze them in a cheesecloth to get out the good stuff that is left lingering in the soaked herbs. We squeeze and squeeze and squeeze. We even take turns squeezing once one person's hands get tired of squeezing. Eventually, we call it. The liquid tincture is bottled, labeled, and sent out to our CSM members or sold at events. The spent herbs get composted, turning into the soil we'll use next year to grow more herbs and start all over again. BUT, we know there is much more very potent medicine deep within those spent herbs. And we'd LOVE to get that into the jars and ultimately into our bodies. The best way to do that is with a tincture press. These bad boys are made to exert 6 tons of pressure onto the herbs-FAR more than we'd been getting with our hands, in order to REALLY squeeze the juice out of them.
Now we can be sure to extract ALL of the plants' goodness straight into the jars and into our bodies. Thanks to Eli Mailey and the local companies he worked with for making our medicine stronger and saving our hands!
To have Eli Mailey work with you on your next project, contact him at delirium87@hotmail.com and tell him we sent you!
Loving our new tool,
Shauna
