A Jar, Some Vodka, and Time
There’s a small brown bottle of nettle tincture on my kitchen counter. It’s the only reason I’m functional right now; allergy season came for our household this year in a way I wasn’t prepared for.
A tincture is plant material that has been soaked in alcohol until the alcohol extracts the useful compounds. Echinacea drops are a tincture, as is valerian extract. So is the vanilla in your baking cabinet. The supplement industry has done an incredible job convincing us this process requires a factory and a $30 bottle. Yet, all it really takes is a jar, some vodka, and time.
Tinctures are among the oldest herbal medicines around, predating capsules, standardized extracts, and the whole industrial supplement apparatus. Spring and summer are the best times to make them, because the plants are at peak potency. If you’ve read our spring foraging post or the herbal teas guide, consider tincture-making the storage solution for what you find.
This guide covers the folk method, which uses plants, jars, and alcohol. No scales, no lab equipment.
The Folk Method
There are two ways to make a tincture. The pharmaceutical approach uses specific herb-to-solvent ratios and alcohol strengths — Richo Cech’s Making Plant Medicine is the standard reference if you want that level of precision.
The folk method is older, simpler, and how most herbalists have made tinctures for centuries. You probably already own everything you need.
1. Harvest. Choose healthy plants from clean places away from roads, parking lots, and chemically treated lawns. Morning is best for leaves and flowers, before the day’s heat burns off the volatile oils.
2. Chop or tear.
- Fresh herbs: rough chop to expose more surface area.
- Roots: dice small or slice thin. Dried herbs can go in as-is or lightly crumbled.
3. Fill a clean glass jar. Fresh material, pack loosely to about two-thirds full. For dried, halfway — it’ll expand as it soaks. Pint or quart mason jars work perfectly.
4. Pour the menstruum (solvent) over the plant material. Cover completely, with about an inch of liquid above the plants. Press down any floating pieces.
5. Cap, label, store. Write the herb name, the menstruum, and the date on the jar. Store it in a cool, dark cupboard, and shake it daily.
6. Wait. Four to six weeks is standard. Some herbalists go shorter for delicate flowers (two weeks), longer for tough roots and barks (eight weeks). You won’t ruin it by waiting too long.
7. Strain. Pour through cheesecloth or a fine-mesh strainer into a clean bowl. Gather the cloth and squeeze hard. The liquid is your tincture. The spent plant material is to be added to the compost.
8. Bottle. Transfer to amber or dark-glass dropper bottles for daily use, keeping the bulk in a larger jar. Label everything.
Choosing Your Menstruum
The menstruum is the liquid that does the extracting. What you pick determines what compounds you pull out.
Vodka (80 proof / 40% alcohol) is the standard and the beginner’s best friend. It extracts a broad range of compounds and has no flavor to compete with the herb. Buy the cheapest bottle you can find — the botanical quality comes from the plants, not the liquor.
Brandy (80 proof / 40% alcohol) works identically but adds a warmer, sweeter flavor. It pairs nicely with bitter roots like dandelion and burdock. Some herbalists use brandy exclusively just for taste.
Higher-proof spirits (Everclear, 50%+) are needed for plants with resinous or oily compounds that resist extraction at 40%. Think bee propolis or myrrh. For everything in this guide, 80 proof is enough.
Apple cider vinegar makes a gentler extraction called an acetum. Use raw, unpasteurized ACV with the mother. Vinegar pulls minerals and some alkaloids, but misses the resinous stuff alcohol captures. Good option if you avoid alcohol or are making something for kids. Shelf life is 1–2 years rather than the near-indefinite life of alcohol tinctures.
Vegetable glycerin produces glycerites — sweet, alcohol-free, popular for children’s remedies. Glycerin is a weaker solvent. It handles sugars and tannins well but struggles with alkaloids and resins.
Spring Herbs to Tincture Right Now (April to May)
Dandelion Root (Taraxacum officinale)
Dig the roots in spring, before the plant puts its energy into flowers. Spring dandelion roots are full of bitter compounds and inulin, a prebiotic fiber that feeds gut bacteria. As a tincture, dandelion root is a digestive bitter. Take it before meals because bitters help move your bile and support liver function. Traditional herbalists call it a "spring cleanser", used when your system’s been in winter mode for months, and a little bitterness nudges it back online.
Scrub the roots well, but don’t peel them. Chop into small pieces. Pack a jar, cover with vodka, wait six weeks. The tincture will be dark brown and aggressively bitter.
Standard dose: 30–60 drops (1–2 dropperfuls) in a little water, 15 minutes before eating.
Violet Leaf and Flower (Viola odorata and Viola sororia)
Violets are blooming all over at the time of year that this article is being written, carpeting lawns and forest edges in purple.
Both the leaves and flowers are medicinal. Violet is a lymphatic herb, gentle and cooling, traditionally used for swollen glands, skin conditions, and as a mild expectorant for dry coughs. The leaves are high in vitamins A and C and contain salicylic acid.
Harvest leaves and flowers together. Fill a jar about two-thirds full with fresh material, cover with vodka. The resulting tincture has a subtle, green flavor.
Dose: 30–60 drops, up to three times daily.
Broadleaf Plantain (Plantago major)
Not a banana relative, despite the name. This is the low-growing "weed" with ribbed, oval leaves that colonizes every sidewalk crack you’ve ever walked past without noticing. Plantain is a wound herb, traditionally applied topically as a poultice for splinters, stings, and irritated skin. As a tincture taken internally, it’s anti-inflammatory and supports respiratory health, making it useful during allergy season when your mucous membranes are inflamed.
Pick the freshest leaves you can find. Chop and jar as above. Mild, slightly vegetal spinach-y taste.
Dose: 30–60 drops as needed.
Cleavers (Galium aparine)
This sticky, scrambling plant is everywhere in April. If you read our herbal teas guide, you might remember cleavers as a lymphatic tonic best used fresh.
A tincture captures those properties for year-round use. Cleavers support lymphatic drainage and kidney function. Herbalists specifically reach for it in spring.
Harvest the fresh aerial parts, meaning the leaves and stems, and tincture them the same day. Cleavers lose most of their medicinal value when dried, so working fresh matters here. Fill a jar loosely, cover with vodka immediately after picking.
Dose: 30–60 drops, two to three times daily.
Summer Herbs to Tincture (June to August)
Different plants come into their own as the season shifts. Put these on your calendar now so you don’t miss the windows.
St. John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum)
St. John’s Wort has to be picked when the flower buds are just opening, usually around the summer solstice in late June. Pick a flowering top, crush a bud between your fingers, and it should stain your skin red-purple. That pigment is hypericin, one of the plant’s key medicinal compounds.
St. John’s Wort tincture is a nervine, used for mild to moderate depression, anxiety, and nerve pain. Dozens of clinical trials support its effect on mood disorders.
Important safety note: St. John’s Wort is a potent inducer of cytochrome P450 enzymes in the liver. It reduces the effectiveness of birth control pills, blood thinners, immunosuppressants, HIV medications, and a lot of other prescriptions. If you’re on any medication, talk to a knowledgeable herbalist or pharmacist before using this plant. It also increases photosensitivity in fair-skinned people.
Tincture the fresh flowering tops in vodka. The menstruum will turn deep red within hours. That color change is how you know extraction is happening.
Dose: 30 drops, two to three times daily. Effects take 4–6 weeks of regular use to appear, much like conventional antidepressants.
Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
Named for Achilles, who supposedly used it on his soldiers’ wounds at Troy. Yarrow is a styptic (stops bleeding), anti-inflammatory, and diaphoretic (promotes sweating to break fevers). It blooms in flat white clusters, occasionally pink, through midsummer, along roadsides and in open meadows.
Harvest the flowering tops and upper leaves. Tincture fresh in vodka. The result is intensely bitter and aromatic. Reach for it at the first sign of a cold or flu; taken in hot water, it promotes sweating and helps the body mount a proper fever response. Externally, a few drops on minor cuts and scrapes will stop the bleeding.
Dose: 30–60 drops as needed.
Elderflower (Sambucus nigra)
Our herbal teas guide covers elderberry as an autumn immune herb, but the flowers have their own season and profile. Elderflowers appear in late May through June in large creamy clusters that smell like honey and something a little musky. Tinctured elderflower is anti-catarrhal (reduces mucus), diaphoretic, and gently calming. Excellent for hay fever and sinus congestion during the worst of allergy season.
Harvest the clusters on a dry, sunny morning when they’re fully open and fragrant. Strip the tiny individual flowers from the stems, as the stems contain cyanogenic compounds you want to minimize or avoid the presence of in the tincture. Tincture fresh in vodka.
Dose: 30–60 drops, up to three times daily during allergy season.
Calendula (Calendula officinalis)
Not a wild plant, but a garden flower. It’s so easy to grow, repels pests from your plants, and is so useful that every herb gardener should have a patch. In my home garden, I’ve staggered these with its cousin, marigold, to prevent nematodes and aphids from attacking my food forest.
The orange and yellow blooms keep coming from June through the first frost. Calendula is anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, and a remarkable wound healer. As a tincture, it supports lymphatic health and soothes digestive inflammation.
Pick the flower heads when they’re fully open, on a dry day after the dew burns off. Tincture fresh in vodka — the result has a warm, resinous aroma.
Dose: 30–60 drops, two to three times daily. Calendula tincture also works when applied directly to minor wounds, rashes, and skin irritation, so it’s a solid addition to a first-aid kit.
Dosage: Working Without a Prescription
Tincture dosage is where herbalism gets honestly imprecise. We’re not dosing single-molecule pharmaceuticals here. We’re working with whole-plant preparations that contain hundreds of compounds at varying concentrations.
The standard adult dose for most tinctures is 30–60 drops (roughly 1–2 dropperfuls) in a little water, one to three times daily. A "dropperful" means the liquid drawn up when you squeeze and release the rubber bulb once. The tube will be about half full, not completely full.
A few guidelines:
For acute conditions (a cold, a bug bite, digestive upset), dose every 2–4 hours until symptoms improve, then back off.
For chronic or tonic use (daily liver support, ongoing anxiety), take 1–2 doses daily, consistently, for weeks to months.
For children, reduce the dose proportionally to body weight. A kid who weighs half as much as an adult gets roughly half the dose. For children under 12, many herbalists prefer glycerites or vinegar extractions over alcohol tinctures.
Keep notes. Write down what you took, how much, and what you noticed. Over time, you’ll develop a sense for what works in your body. No dosage chart can give you that — only paying attention to yourself can.
Safety: Read This Section
Tinctures concentrate plant compounds. That’s the point, but it also means mistakes are concentrated.
Identification is everything. Never tincture a plant you haven’t positively identified. Some plants in this guide have toxic lookalikes. If you’re new to plant ID, work alongside an experienced forager or herbalist until your confidence is earned rather than assumed. Our spring foraging guide and wild greens guide cover safe identification in detail.
Drug interactions are real. St. John’s Wort is the most dramatic example (see above), but other herbs interact with medications too. Dandelion root may amplify diuretics. Yarrow may interact with blood thinners. If you’re on prescriptions, do the research — or ask a professional — before adding tinctures to your routine.
Pregnancy and nursing. Many herbs are contraindicated during pregnancy. Yarrow, mugwort, and St. John’s Wort should all be avoided. Violet and calendula are generally considered safe. The responsible advice: talk to a qualified herbalist or midwife before using any herbal tincture during pregnancy or nursing.
Start low, go slow. When trying a new tincture for the first time, begin with half the suggested dose and pay attention to how your body responds. Increase gradually over several days.
Label everything. An unlabeled jar of brown liquid six months from now is useless at best and dangerous at worst. Herb name, menstruum, date. That’s the minimum.
Disclaimer: This guide is educational and not a substitute for professional medical advice. Don’t use herbal tinctures as a replacement for prescribed medications without consulting your healthcare provider. If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medications, or managing a chronic condition, talk to a professional before starting any herbal regimen.
The Solarpunk Apothecary
Keeping your own apothecary connects you to something the pharmaceutical industry, by its very nature, can’t give you. Not because the pharmaceutical model is bad — antibiotics, anesthesia, and vaccines are real gifts, and I’m not here to argue against any of that. But there’s a specific thing folk medicine offers that a $30 supplement bottle can’t: a direct relationship with what’s growing where you live.
Start with one jar. Dandelion is probably growing within fifty feet of wherever you’re sitting right now. Dig it up, wash it, chop it, put it in a jar, pour vodka over it. Write your name and the date on the lid. Put it in a cupboard and try to remember to shake it.
Six weeks from now, you’ll have medicine you made yourself.
Written by E. Silkweaver