As an herbalist, do you find yourself enamored with bottles and jars? You can easily let yourself—ahem, I have easily let myself—get carried away with tincture bottles, enjoying the glint of glass and the organized look of neat rows of jars on my shelf.

Get Creative With Herbal Remedies

And if you’re using or selling tinctures, this is great. But if you’re making them for your family or even as gifts, it’s easy to have way too much, especially of something you realize you aren’t really going to use that much of—such as violet flower tincture. If you end up with a half-gallon of violet flower tincture, you may smile later and wonder what you had planned to do with it all. Tinctures, after all, are given by the ¼ teaspoon, with about 25 drops being a dose, and you will be taking violet flower tincture until you are 100 years old.

So, my recommendation is to begin with small jars for tinctures—perhaps pint jars—when you’re starting out, and allow yourself to get creative by making other worthy remedies, too. I recommend “thinking outside the bottle.” There are countless innovative ways to use herbs in your apothecary, kitchen or pantry that don’t involve alcohol or making a tincture.

Alternatives to Tinctures

If your garden is anything like mine, it will produce volumes of herbs, great quantities of green foliage and huge roots erupting from the ground with your shovel.

If you're growing any of these herbs: sage, fennel, lemon balm, roses, rosemary, catnip, comfrey, elderflower, borage, anise hyssop, tulsi, and many more), you will have mountains of plant material to work with. Instead of purchasing 20-40 half-gallon canning jars and a spending a fortune of vodka, I suggest using this abundance of herbal material in a wide variety of ways. Tinctures are not your only option! Instead of making a half-dozen jars of, say, lemon balm tincture, for instance, you can:

• make quantities of lemon balm tea (and freeze some of it in ice cube containers for later!)
• make a lovely, soothing lemon balm or rose petal rinse for topical use on dry sunburned skin (or to pour into your cool bathtub)
• make lemon balm oils for lotion and salves (LINK to Lotions recipe)
• make a sugar syrup to drizzle into your morning oatmeal and into tea
• hang some of your herbs to dry for later use (spread onto newsprint, or spread onto a screen suspended above a stairwell, or in the attic)
• infuse herbs into a pot with honey and make infused honey (LINK to Infused Honey)
• infuse herbs into apple cider vinegar (great for salad dressing) 
• make a giant pot of lemon balm “tea” and pour it in a hot, freshly-drawn bath for soaking in, (LINK to bath recipes)
• and place a small portion of it in jars with vodka or brandy for tinctures. 

Really, you’ll likely have enough lemon balm (or spearmint or lavender or catnip) to make all of these in one season. It’s easy to get excited about tinctures, but many herbs (especially the nutritious herbs and tonics) are so much better used in a way that is non-tincture.

Be creative! Experiment and enjoy the process, and then... share what you learn with others.

For more guidance and to dive deeper into learning about herbal medicine and natural health, check out my online course Herbal Medicine FOUNDATIONS, below.

Excerpted/adapted from Llewellyn’s Little Book of Herbs by Holly Bellebuono