How to Make Your Own Aromatic Tinctures

Mixologists are trained to leverage the transformative power of scent to perform alchemy with the same spirits you drink over ice at home or mixed with something out of a soda gun at a pub. At their most skillful, mixologists retain the aromatic character of the spirit at the base of their cocktail while accentuating or complementing nuances of the base with sparing addition of liqueurs and cordials, juices and fruit garnishes, bitters, syrups, shrubs, and tinctures.

Bitters have received enough attention from craft companies and international distributors. The bitter is a class of tinctures that contains a characteristic bitter compound, most often quinine from the Cinchona bark, that gives tonic its distinctive flavor and scent. There are other bitter materials used, including orris root, dandelion root, gentian root, wormwood, many of which can be purchased in various forms from Mountain Rose Herbs. They also have an awesome guide on making tinctures with videos. Consuming bitters 15 minutes prior to a meal, as in an apertif or a tincture added to soda water, has been used for many centuries to stimulate digestion and calm the parasympathetic nervous system.

The power of tinctures to enliven a meal goes well beyond the use of bitter flavors. Rosemary is a culinary staple as well as a key ingredient in perfume, aromatherapy, and spiritual practice. Citrus essences such as bergamot essential oil have been shown to cause immediate reductions in cortisol and reported anxiety.

The benefit of using your own tinctures is that you can decide whether to use sugar or alcohol in scented beverages. As the growing popularity of flavored, unsweetened sparkling water shows, many more people are beginning to recognize the enjoyment that can come from carbonation and natural essences.

Making tinctures is relatively simple. Check out our Complete Guide: How Do I Make My Own Perfume?

You will need the following supplies:

• Grain alcohol (190 proof) and vodka (80 proof). For the grain alcohol, you can use Everclear as long as it is the 151 proof or higher. Otherwise, you can purchase food grade alcohol in retail quantities at Culinary Solvents or The Organic Alcohol Co.

• Canning jars or other glass containers with screw caps (think pasta sauce jars). Plastic jar tops can be corroded over time, which can be prevented by placing a layer of parchment between the cap and the bottle

• Cheese cloth

• Glass storage bottle, small dropper bottle, small spray bottle

• Metal funnel

• Aromatic materials (dried or fresh)

Prepare Your Materials

• If you are using fresh herbs, these should be chopped roughly at least to expose more surface area to the alcohol

• Zest citrus and chop zest if you are using a zester with large output

• Seeds should be crushed with a mortar and pestle, although you don’t want to crush them into too fine a powder such that they can’t be strained out later

Use the Right Alcohol Strength

The Mountain Rose Herbs guide to tinctures suggests that one vary the proof of the alcohol depending on the starting materials. Stronger is not always better here. Craft brewing forum conversations on hop tinctures also warn of overextraction of undesirable compounds with too high of a proof or too long of a maceration period (how long you leave the aromatics in the solvent).

• ~45% alcohol by volume (80- to 90-proof)

  • Best for dried herbs or fresh herbs with low water content

  • Extracts a higher ratio of water-soluble compounds than higher strength solutions

• ~70% alcohol by volume (half 80-proof vodka and half 190-proof grain alcohol)

  • Best for fresh herbs with higher water content

  • Extracts volatile aromatics

• 95% alcohol

  • Don’t use for aromatic tinctures of herbs and edible plants as it extracts undesirable components

Tincturing Process

• For dried herbs, seeds, and barks, fill the glass container about half full before filling the rest with the right alcohol (~45% alcohol by volume). The dried materials will grow in volume as they absorb alcohol. You can leave a bit of room for stirring as long as everything is covered and you have a good seal with the cap

• For fresh herbs, zest, or other fresh materials, you can fill most of the space with the herb material as long as everything is submerged by the alcohol

• You should agitate (shake) the jar every day or so. Check to make sure that all of the plant materials remain fully submerged. You will likely have to add alcohol to replace the loss to evaporation. Make sure that you don’t allow plant material to be exposed to air. This can allow the material to spoil

• There is some debate about how long to tincture. The most volatile compounds will be extracted quickly (perhaps in a day), while the extraction of less volatile compounds will take longer (up to 6-8 weeks). At a certain point, depending on the alcohol strength, the tincture will reach full strength and will not absorb anything else from the plant materials. The timing will vary for every material and for the end use. For a scent-focused tincture focused on extracting volatile essences, you can take a sample at various stages and assess using paper tester strips (take notes!)

• When you are satisfied that the maceration has gone long enough, strain the mixture into a clean glass container or storage bottle using cheesecloth and a metal funnel. or cheesecloth over a wire mesh strainer over a glass measuring cup. You could also use a coffee filter. You won’t lose much of the aromatic compound using a paper coffee filter (we do use them to brew coffee).

• Store tinctures in a larger glass amber bottle and transfer to small dropper or spray bottles for use

Using Your Tincture

• With sparkling water: Garnish with the same or complementary materials. If you are using a rosemary lemon tincture, put a sprig of rosemary in the cup so that it rests over the edge of the glass. Crush a few of the leaves in your fingers. Slice a lemon and cut a slit through the round 3/4 of the way through. Run the cut lemon along the rim of the glass and either rest on the rim or in the cup. When you are ready to serve, fill the glass with chilled sparkling water. Add drops of the tincture to the water to taste (you will want to test the strength first). Immediately before serving, spray the inside of the glass with your tincture using a perfume sprayer

• Culinary: Spray over plated food immediately prior to serving. This works wonders with lightly dressed salads or with a heavier meal with roasted meats that needs something to lift the roasted herbs to attention. This will have minimal to no impact on the flavor of the food when tasted, but by engaging the sense of smell before eating, can transform how we taste and smell throughout the meal