Purple Dead Nettle Tincture
The best way to have easy access to the health benefits of purple dead nettles year round, is to make a tincture. This is very easy to do.
Equipment
- Scissors or a knife - For chopping
- 2 quart canning jars
- 2 tight sealing lids
- Nut milk bag or flower sack towel - For straining out the herbs
- Medium size Bowl - To catch the tincture
- Small dropperbottles - For easy dosing
Ingredients
- 1 quart of purple dead nettle leaves - Note: If you have access to white dead nettles, feel free to use this same recipe and the benefits all seem to apply similarly to both.
- 750 ml bottle of 50% (100 proof) vodka - 80 proof will work in a pinch, but 100 proof is preferrable
Instructions
- Roughly chop your dead nettles or use scissors to cut them into small pieces.
- Place the herbs into one of the quart jars. Don't pack them in too tight, just loosely fill the jar to the top.
- Add vodka to cover the herbs. Ideally fill the jar to the very top to reduce oxidation.
- Seal the jar tightly
- Shake it up a bit and place the jar in a corner out of sunlight, where it's not in the way for a few weeks. If you remember, give it a shake every now and then, but that's not essential.
- Let it macerate (extract) for 6-8 weeks.
- After this time you can strain the herbs out with a cloth or nut milk bag and catch the tincture in a bowl. Squeeze the bag to get as much of the tincture out of the plants as possible and feed the solids to your compost.
- Store the tincture in a tightly sealed Jar. I like to use a canning jar with a flat metal lid, covered with a plastic lid, this makes a snug seal and it doesn't corrode like metal
- If you want to use the tincture, you'll want to fill a small amount into a dropper bottle, which makes it easy to dose. However, this is not ideal for long term storage. Those little rubber tops will allow the alcohol to evaporate over time and that will ruin your tincture. But it's ok to keep it in the dropper bottles for a couple of months.
Dosage:
- The generally recommended dosage size for most herbal tinctures for adult humans is 10-30 drops 3 times over the course of a day. One dropper contains 20 drops.
- However, I recommend to start with micro-dosing, and only increase if necessary. Many herbs work beautifully even if you take just 2-3 drops at a time several times a day.