The Secret Art of Podging!

 

Last Saturday I went along to my friend Sarah's workshop on Tinctures, and had a wonderful time, bare in mind that I only began to dabble in the art of making my own herbal kitchen remedies with Sarah's encouragement about the middle of 2007, so I have a lot to learn. That's what I most enjoy about her workshops, everything is so hands on and taught in easy terms that you can't help but learn from the experience. Sarah believes that people learn best when they're having fun and talking about their experiences and she's right.

After every workshop, I feel invigorated, de-stressed and happy because I've spent time with people who feel as enthusiastically about herbs as I do. I'm inspired to go home and try what I've learnt, or it gives me an idea to make something new and the Tincture workshop was no exception. After showing us how to make our own simple tincture, Sarah demonstrated a very technical technique (well as technical as Sarah's workshops get) the art of 'podging', Sarah is demonstrating how to 'podge' in the above photo, basically you need a chopstick and you podge (or stab) at the herb in the alcohol until all the air bubbles have gone, simple!

Sarah always make sure that everyone gets to take something home with them that they've made themselves, or had a hand in making. At the workshop I chopped fresh ginger root and made a ginger tincture with that, I'd put spices in other things I'd made such as the Elderberry Elixir Sarah taught me how to make at a previous workshop a year or so ago, but I'd never thought to make single tinctures of spices. What I found remarkable about chopping the ginger was the warming and softening effect it had on my hands. It made me think that I'd noticed some of the 'because you're worth it' type products lately are adding ginger extract for its 'stimulating qualities', so I wondered about making a ginger infused oil to make a cream to soften and warm cold hands? It's on the to do list!

I dabbled with making my own tinctures last year and I made calendula tincture from the fresh flowers from the garden and also peppermint tincture. All the recipes say to use dried marigold petals for the tincture, but I thought fresh would be better. It came out okay, but I'll dry the petals myself this year and make a tincture with the dried petals and compare the difference. I can probably read somewhere what the difference is, but I think I'll learn better from my own experiments?!

Which takes me back to what I said about being inspired at Sarah's workshops, for some reason whilst we were tincturing, the idea of a citrus tincture came to mind, okay some can argue that I was hankering for a vodka and orange with all the vodka on the table during the tincturing session lol! But my mind developed the idea of this citrusy tincture that I decided to call 'Opal fruits' those over 40 will know what I mean :) So, when I got home I took the zest off 1 lime, 2 lemons, 2 large oranges added the juice of the lime, 1 lemon and 1 orange and topped the lot up with vodka, it was all I could do to stop Simon drinking it lol! I'm going to see whether it will work as a digestive much like the grapefruit aperitif that Sarah showed us how to make last winter.

One of the other tinctures I made this week was Lavender Tincture, as there were 16 people this time, Sarah split us in to two groups, after the rosemary tincture/podging demo, my group tasted and 'experienced Uplifting tinctures, I was amazed at the colour of the Skullcap tincture, a beautiful amber colour and a fruity aroma that I didn't quite expect. I found my 'sunshine' though in the rose petal tincture, such a profound experience that brought happy memories of my Mum (not someone I associate with roses as she disliked them immensely!), I felt warm, happy and there was a peaceful calm that was really eye opening.

When the summer comes and the roses are in bloom again I'll be making a large batch of rose petal tincture just to recapture that feeling. I made the lavender tincture as that was one of the other uplifting tinctures that I tried that I connected with, no surprise really as lavender is one of my favourite herbs. Sarah told us that someone on one of the U.S. blogs had described lavender tincture as "a hug in a bottle", they weren't wrong! Calming, warming, de-stressed (it had been an emotional week), happy and invigorating were the things I experienced from the lavender tincture, all the things you get from a huge hug from someone who means the world to you, sheer bliss! I used dried culinary lavender that I had in, which is a deep purple, the tincture instantly went purple, its now so dark it almost looks black! Lavender tincture is another candidate for making with fresh flowers in the summer, just to compare the difference.