Herbal Medicine Making for Beginners… You Got This!

This post is a Bonafide master class on herbal medicine making for beginners. It’s a class that I always include in my introductory programs, single standalone classes, and apprenticeships because this is the way that I, myself, have learned to make plant medicine over the years.

What I’ve found is that this way of teaching and engaging with herbal medicine making makes the art and science of the process seems so much more accessible. And that’s incredibly important because many people feel intimidated when it comes to the idea of herbal medicine making. In fact, that’s really not true.

What is true: herbal medicine making is really no more difficult than cooking. Actually, in my opinion, it’s a LOT easier than cooking, especially when you’re trying to follow a more advanced recipe. It also serves as a beautiful reminder to us all that if you are alive and a human being, then you are descended from people who, not too many generations ago, were medicine makers themselves. Every household knew how to make basic medicines for their own care, nourishment, health, and basic first aid. Chances are, this knowledge and skill already lies dormant inside of you!

I'm really called to empower people to remember that growing your own herbs, wild harvesting your own herbs, and making your own medicine is your birthright. It was wired into your neurology when you incarnated into a human body on this planet. All of our ancestors evolved with the plants, even from the plants, and so we know how to do this. Sure, we are going to make mistakes. Believe me, I have! You will make remedies that go bad, that spoil, that taste awful; and that is how we learn. The biggest barrier: getting started. So, I hope this post gives you a map for that journey!

Understanding Key Terms

First, there are a few terms that you need to know. Herbalists like these old timey words that speak to their craft.

MACERATE: Macerate is the word that herbalists use for the process of infusing an herb into a solvent, or liquid. The process of infusion is called macerating or maceration.

MENSTRUUM: Menstruum is the term that herbalists use for that liquid, or solvent, that is macerating those herbs. This is usually water, alcohol, glycerin, oil, vinegar, honey, or some combination of all of those. Its job is to pull the medicine out of the herbs.

MARC-Marc is the word that herbalists use for the plant material that is macerating in the menstruum.

So, the menstruum is macerating the marc- are you with me so far? This is what herbal medicine making is all about!

Two Ways to Preserve: Drying Plants or Making Preparations

If you think back to your ancestors a few generations ago, before there was refrigeration, they needed to preserve their herbal medicines in some way (and their foods too, of course).  In order to do that, they had two options for preservation. The first option was, and still is, to properly dry our plants. You can hang them in bundles, lay them on towels, put them on screens, use a dehydrator…whatever works with your space and life flow will work as long as the plants are dried out, and then stored in airtight containers, jars or bags.

The second option is to preserve them in some way. That is where we get into the realm of herbal remedy medicine making. We are using various MENSTRUUM to pull out, or extract, the medicinal constituents from a plant and then preserving that extraction for any amount of time. How to we choose a menstruum for that process? We have to consider the shelf life of various menstruums and their therapeutic effect, as well as what is the most optimal means of administering that preparation.

The first menstruum is water, which we use to make an herbal tea. With water, most often (though not all the time) the heat is allowing the water to pull out the constituents from the plant and then be drank! Most everyone has access to it, and it is very effective for consuming large amounts of plants. It can also be used to prepare topical applications in the form of fomentations or compresses. These are where you soak a cloth in a herbal infusion, or tea, and then administer it topically on the body. The downside of water as a menstruum is that it has a very short shelf life: it only lasts a few days. We use other menstruums to preserve the shelf life for longer.

The primary menstruums that are used for making tinctures to take internally are alcohol and water, usually a combination. Alcohol is a super ideal menstruum for plants because it is so effective at pulling out those medicinal constituents, and it has a pretty much indefinite shelf life, at minimum a few years. Most of those little amber bottles that you buy at your Co-op or apothecary are tincture preparations where the menstruum is alcohol.

Now, for various good reasons, certain people can't ingest alcohol preparations and so in that case, the alternative is to use a substance called glycerin for the menstruum. Glycerin is a very sweet sticky substance that is the backbone of a triglyceride or fat molecule that has been removed from the triglycerides. It serves as a great alcohol-free menstruum for folks that need to avoid alcohol, kids, or other people with sensitive palates. It's sweet and so it makes the plants taste better and that's a great benefit. The downside? Glycerites don't last as long as alcohol tinctures, only a couple years, and they aren't as strong and effective as alcohol at pulling out the medicinal constituents from a plant.

Other menstruums include vinegar: apple cider, white, balsamic…really whatever you like and have access to. Vinegar is great at pulling out minerals from plants. So, our mineral rich herbs, like nettle, red raspberry, oat straw, alfalfa, dandelion, etc. work great in vinegar-based menstruums. Herbalists call these acetracts, and they are another great option if you're needing to be alcohol free. Also, if you're wanting to incorporate the medicine into your food, you can add those vinegars into your foods, your salad dressings, and even into drinks. Like glycerites, their shelf life is shorter, a few months to a year.

Another option is herbal wines: infusing herbs into pre-made wine. Tasty, and a way to add medicine into something you might already be drinking. This, of course, won’t work if you are avoiding alcohol, and the shelf life may only be a few months.

Although these are the main ways to prepare herbs to take internally, you can also eat many herbs fresh or dry, add them to your food, or powder them and put them into capsules.

Crafting Herbal Remedies for Topical Application

For topical use of herbs, there are many ways to prepare our herbal medicines. We’ve already covered one of those: to make infusions of the plants and then you apply them topically as compresses or fomentations. Another main menstruum for topical application is making infused herbal oils and any fixed oil will do so. A fixed oil is any oil that is pressed from a plant. Fixed oils are different from essential oils, which are the highly concentrated aromatic components of a plant that were obtained through steam distillation. Fixed oils include all of your culinary oils: olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, sunflower oil, Castor oil, Jojoba oil, etc. Of course, they all have different characteristics and different medicinal properties.

For my purposes, and what I teach my introductory students, I suggest using olive oil for all of your herbal oils. Olive oil is pretty nutritious in terms of viscosity, it's light and it just works really lovely to hold infused herbs. The oil applies really easily to the skin, which is a great benefit. It also creates a bit of a layer on the skin, penetrates well, and smells good! Additionally, topical applications like this promote healthy circulation and help our nervous systems settle. They’re also great for anointing. The downsides are that they don't last more than a year, sometimes a lot less, and they can be a bit more finicky because you are mixing oil with water. Especially if you're working with fresh plants, then there's going to be water content in those plants that are added into the oil.

There are so many ways to make topical infused oils, but the method that follows below (the folk method) is likely the most simple. Keep reading! It’s likely you’ll add to this simple method at times by using more heat, but start with the basics! You can then use that infused oil to make a salve, or ointment. All you need to do here is add beeswax! The ratio is 1oz beeswax to 1 cup of oil, gently melted into the oil over low heat and then poured into containers when it hardens. That’s the only difference between an oil and a salve. If you’ve never made a salve before, I suggest doing it! Its easy, its magical, and it will be REALLY empowering to do!

Another way of doing topical applications is what are called liniments. The menstruum here is either isopropyl alcohol or alcohol, and the herbs are macerated in those menstruums and then applied topically. Often these are used as disinfectants or circulatory stimulants for deeper injuries.

There are also miels, which are just preparations where the menstruum is honey. So the herbs are soaked in honey, and then from there you can do all kinds of mixing and doctoring. Mixing infused honeys with infused vinegars is called an oxymel and is super delicious. Adding honey to your herbal wines is called an elixir. You can add honey to your tinctures as well.

Mastering the Folk Method: Your Medicine Making Journey

So, how do you macerate? What does the maceration process look like? Well, this is what has become known as and what I call the FOLK method of herbal medicine making. Essentially the process is exactly the same no matter the plant or menstruum you're using.

You have your jar: mason jar, old spaghetti sauce jar, recycled pickle jar, etc. Make sure you sterilize them, and then fill your jar about halfway full with your plant material and cover that plant material with your menstruum of choice. You want your menstruum to cover the plants completely plus about one to two inches on top. Some plant material, especially if they're dry or leafy, will swell when added to the menstruum, so let this sit for a few minutes and add more menstruum if needed.

Now that that maceration has begun, you shake it. Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake and shaking is a chance to connect your heart with the heart of the medicine, with the heart of the plant. Send any of your prayers, your blessings, your infusions in. It also helps to break up the cell walls of the plants and pull out and extract the medicinal constituents from the plant into solution. Then, you want it to sit for two weeks. Maybe you give it a shake every day or every other day.

After a minimum of two weeks, you strain your preparation through a double mesh strainer lined with cheesecloth, or just cheesecloth or cheesecloth lined in a potato press or ricer. The resultant liquid is now your preparation, or your herbal medicine. You want to store this in a cool, dark place, out of direct sunlight and away from a direct heat source. As a reminder, all of these preparations are going to have a different shelf life, meaning they're going to last for different amounts of time. This is something you will learn as you go!

…..And voila, that is how you make medicine! That is the basic folk method for tinctures, topical oils, infused vinegars, etc! We start here with the basic “rule of thumb,” but from there we can begin to learn deviations and nuances, such as if the plant material is dry or fresh, what constituent profile does it have, what menstruum is most idea for it, and so on and so on. This is a practice that continues to build for a lifetime! You’ll learn these as you go along, and depending on how deeply you go into the path of herbalism.

But, for starters, just use the folk method. You’ll find so much power in starting here, trying to make a tincture, uninfused oil, a salve, a tea. Power for yourself, and for the people that you share it with. I know you will learn quickly, its so much easier than you feared and so much more gratifying and rewarding than you could have imagined. I hope this empowers you to get out there, to start getting your hands in and on and around the plants in this way, co- creating with them on behalf of All of Life!

Blessed be your medicine making, dear ones.