Spagyric Tincture and Essence Production Notes

I currently offer three different types of spagyric preparations, and I'll explain the differences and their methods of production here.

All tinctures start with dried plant material, sourced organic and with a preference for wildcrafted. I will select cultivated over wildcrafted if I can't verify that the process of harvesting it from the wild was performed sustainably, or if the plant is endangered. All plant material will always be organic as I have no interest in potentially concentrating what may have been used to treat the plant.

Spagyric Tincture (Basic)

This product starts with dried plant material and commercially produced everclear (190 proof) which is sourced from a local distillery here in Colorado. The first step of the process is macerating at room temperature (for flowers and leaves) or on very gentle, passive heat (for bark and roots). Each jar is checked over and shaken each day for a duration of at least 27 days, but many are left to extract for longer (up to a year). The everclear acts as a generic plant Mercury, and it extracts the Sulphur of the plant.

The plant material is filtered from the tincture liquid, and incinerated to ash. Those ashes are leeched with distilled water to acquire the Salts, which are the water soluble mineral portions. These Salts are added into the tincture, where they act as an acid catalyst to cause esterification of the acids present in the extracted essential oils and the alcohol of the extraction medium. This generates trace amounts of novel substances which are considered a good thing, and part of the desired outcome of producing an alchemical tincture.

All of my tinctures are produced from dried plants at a rate of 1:1 by mass. Meaning, there is just enough alchohol added to cover the herb properly.

The tincture is left to rest for 2-4 weeks, gently filtered to eliminate excess and unreacted salts, and then stored in a dark glass bottleat a stable temperature away from light exposure. When you place an order I bottle the tincture, label the bottle, and drop it in the mail for you.

Because these tinctures are 95% ethanol, they're shelf-stable at room temperature in regards to potential bacterial or other contaminate growths. I've yet to find useful data that would indicate what the date range is for effectiveness of tinctures, so I cannot offer a scientifically backed 'use by' date. While there is some study data on the changes some substances undergo during storage at room temperature, they focus on specific phytochemical components and do not provide the whole picture. What I do suggest, however, is to keep your products out of sunlight as there is quite a bit of data to suggest that many useful constituents degrade rapidly when exposed to sunlight. All of the tinctures I offer are packaged in colored glass bottles. This helps, but does not prevent, degredation of the constituents.

If you're looking for a solid use-by date, the general consensus in the herbalism communities is to use tinctures by the 3-5 year mark. I will never sell a tincture more than two years old, and the date of creation as well as the date of bottling are both present on my labels.

Spagyric Tincture (Spiritus Vini)

The next step up from a Basic Spagyric Tincture that I offer is produced using a highly rectified Ethanol extracted from grape wine, rather than commercial everclear. (Rectified means to be made pure, so it is of 140-190 proof). Alchemically, the Spirit of Wine is considered to be the 'universal spirit of the plant kingdom', and second only to Mercury fermented from the specific plant itself. The process is otherwise the same as producing a basic tincture, but the smell and flavor are much more pleasant.

Spagyric Essence

An 'Essential Tincture' or Essence is still a tincture, but it doesn't use an external Mercury. The process is much more time and labor intensive, and the yield per amount of plant is much smaller than with a Spagyric Tincture.

The dried plant material is first soaked in distilled water for 1-3 days in a cool dark place. This is to help loosen up the material and encourage release of the essential oil or Sulphur of the plant. It then undergoes either steam distillation (flowers, leaves) or direct water distillation (roots, barks) to extract the essential oils. The oil is separated using gravity, and the hydrosol or 'flower water' remaining is added back to the plant material.

The plant and hdyrosol may then have a pinch of brewer's yeast and a bit of sugar added to it in order to cause fermentation. Plants high in sugars do not have sugar added, and some have a handful of undistilled plant material added as a natural source of yeast rather than a supplement of brewer's yeast. This is highly variable, and will depend not only on the specific plant, but the condition the material is in, where it was harvested, and some amount of alchemical intuition.

The plant is fermented to produce its own ethanol, which is then separated through distillation and rectified to increase its proof to between 140-190. The hydrosol remaining from this distillation process is used to wash the salts, which are leeched from the ashes of both the incinerated plant body (Salts of Salt) and the incinerated distillation residue (Salts of Sulphur). The rectified Mercury or ethanol then has the Sulphur and Salts added back into it, and is set in a sealed container on gentle heat to circulate for 2-4 weeks, and decanted into an opaque glass storage jar to reduce the presence of any unreacted salts which have precipitated to the bottom.

The result is a tincture produced entirely from the plant. These Essential tinctures contain more water than my basic Tinctures, but are still at least 70% alcohol and also shelf stable.