And Now For Some Herbalism: Black Elderberry, Premier Anti Viral of the Sierra

Tinctures, Glycerites, Acetums, Tonic and Kombucha
Sept. 2014  Class Handout

 For many people the onset of winter and change of season also means the dreaded onset of colds and flu.  Nobody likes to go down with a cold and have it morph into something more serious like a sore or strep throat, flu, whooping cough,bronchitis or pneumonia.   Or worse.

More than ever before, modern research is revealing not only the abject irresponsibility and ineffectiveness of mainstream flu shots and pharmaceutical drugs to keep seasonal related illness at bay, but also that the real cures and remedies truly are time honored and proven botanicals such as elderberry, horehound, ginger, cardamom, garlic, echinacea -- and the list goes on across cultures, geographical regions and time.

Here in the Sierras we are blessed to have so many of Nature’s most potent medicinal plants for colds and flu grow easily and/or naturally.  This particular document focuses on using Black Elderberry and Flowers in various preparations for winter wellness.  I have been developing recipes over the last 7 years in order to find easy and effective ways to use these botanicals and see how they work.

In the last years I’ve made many tinctures & tonics both in a class setting and on my own at home, and have given them out freely for people to try.  The feedback, when I got it, especially from people who actually had immediate need for the product, was overwhelmingly and astonishingly positive, with nearly everyone reporting that healing and positive change had taken place in a very short time.  Many people said they did not get sick, even though when they received some tincture they felt like they surely were going to be ill.

Others reported a general increase in overall wellness.  This category of people was not immediately sick but rather had long term low grade respiratory debilitation of some sort, such as lingering cough, bronchitis, smoker’s hack and cigarette or pot addiction, or low grade chronic sore throat.

Because these products and recipes were so effective in either flat-out stopping a cold or flu or speeding up the healing process, it is important that people are aware of how to create their own powerful medicinals to have on hand for winter and change of season.  These are things our great grandmothers and many before them knew.  How lucky we are that the old knowledge lives on, it means so will we.


After several years of being frustrated with the rapid spoilage rate of homemade Elderberry syrup, I’ve since expanded my repertoire to include numerous alcoholic tincture blends, glycerites, acetums, kombucha, tea and hopefully soon to try a candy/throat lozenge.  This document contains various notations that can be used to make your own recipes.  Sorry for the absence of quantities in some instances but that is my m.o. when I work alone many times.  It frees one to develop one's own formulas.  Along  those same lines, one of my herb lady friends tells me that she adds cloves to her elderberry syrup, which she says has greatly increased it's shelf life once the container is opened.


Black Elderberry (Sambucas nigra), ---Synonyms---Black Elder. Common Elder. Pipe Tree. Bore Tree. Bour Tree. (Fourteenth Century) Hylder, Hylantree. (Anglo-Saxon) Eldrum. (Low Saxon). Ellhorn. (German) Hollunder. (French) Sureau;  should not to be confused with Red Elderberry and other ornamental varieties.  It is a hardy perennial bush/tree that can happily naturalize in the Sierra Foothills landscape and has been used in folk medicine for centuries.

The bush is found in both Europe and North America, where it is considered an “elder” plant by Native American healers.  Both drought and cold hardy, it produces prized anti-viral blossoms and berries that beneficial insects and birds love.   While all parts of the plant can purportedly be used, this document focuses exclusively on blossoms and fruit.

A note on cultivation:  I have been under the erroneous assumption that elderberry easily makes it out in the wild of the Sierra.  It DOES make it, but only under the condition that it’s tapped into a water source of some kind -- otherwise we would see them everywhere like blackberries.  It is simply not the case.  I found this out the unfortunate hard way by not watering my large prolific bush in the back yard as it went into the fruiting cycle 2 years in a row now.  Since we are in long term drought in CA, it absolutely needed extra, regular watering starting in May.  This I neglected to do and got nothing but one small handful of fruit this year, and it had been loaded with blossoms.


Do take care when working with black elderberry that twigs, leaves, stems and seeds are all removed before ingesting.  The seeds and unripe berries are toxic, as are the leaves but less so.  Also the fresh juice is said to be toxic if ingested unheated, although tinctures and glycerites featuring the slightly drying berries do not seem to be a problem.  However I am careful now to remove all leaves and stems from the blossoms.


Black elderberries can be prepared in a variety of ways besides tinctures, including elderberry syrup (which is delicious but I find it spoils quickly after opening the jar), elderberry wine or cordial, or the flowers and dried berries can both be used as tea ingredients.  My favorite way to use both is in tincture form, although the blossoms are deliciously fragrant and wonderful in all kinds of tea blends and said to be delicious dipped in egg and fried as a fritter.

Elderberry has been used by native tribes and Europeans in many forms as an immune booster and general tonic throughout the ages and is a time-honored anti-viral remedy for colds and flu with virtually no harmful side effects if prepared and taken properly.  And based on the overwhelmingly positive feedback I’ve gotten after several years’ worth of making products and handing them out, I can honestly say that it is one of the most potent botanicals I’ve ever tried to knock the socks off colds, flu and viruses.  Everyone should have it in their medicine cabinet.

Common Herbalist Terms:

Acetum:  Herbal extraction using vinegar as the medium.
Anti-viral: Inhibits viruses
Anti-inflammatory:  Reduces swollen, inflamed, irritated, over-heated tissues.
Decoction:  A concentrated water based extraction of plant matter that is made by simmering harder plant parts like roots, seeds, twigs and bark over a low heat until the liquid is concentrated and reduces down.
Decant:  To strain out and separate botanical matter from the infusing medium.  It usually refers to the final step in tincture preparation where the initial pressed-out tincture is allowed to sit overnight and then the clear liquid is poured off or decanted into a clean bottle leaving the sludge-like layer of dregs to be discarded.
Glycerite:  An herbal extraction in vegetable glycerin, which is sweet and non-alcoholic, great for kids.
Dregs:  Plant matter left over after decanting a tincture or pressing out an infused oil.
Infuse:  The process of allowing a carrier medium like water, oil, or vinegar to take on properties of plant matter, resulting in products like brewed tea, salad dressing, or other herbal oils. It usually involves a heat process of some sort.
Infusion:  An oil or water based extraction of plant matter
Macerate: To chop or cut botanicals into small bits so that an optimal amount of surface is exposed for purposes of infusing in some sort of medium or menstruum such as oil, alcohol, vinegar or glycerin.
Tincture:  An alcohol-based extraction of plant matter.

Elderberry Products for 2014

Elderberry Tincture for Colds ‘n Flu 2014:

Dry Elderberry, 1 cup

Dried Blossoms, 1/2 cup

Dried Echinacea Root, 2 TBSP

6 fresh Peppermint stalks

32 fresh Blackberries

10 sm. fresh Rosehips

4 fresh Peruvian Goldberries

In a bottle of Everclear

Just Elderberry Acetum
1 1/2 cup Elderberry on the fresh side
1/2 cup dried Elder Flowers
in 32 oz Bragg Apple Cider Vinegar

Savory Elderberry Acetum

1 sm. bulb garlic

1/2 cup fresh Elderberry

1 very hot Pepper

1 inch knob fresh ginger, peeled and chopped

sm. handful dry Turkey Tail Mushrooms

sm. bunch dry Savory

1 tsp. yellow Mustard Seed

in 16 oz Bragg Apple Cider Vinegar

Elderberry Glycerite
1/2 cup Elderberries on the fresh side
1/2 cup fresh Chocolate Mint
1/2 cup dry Elder Flowers
in 16 oz Vegetable Glycerin

Elderberry Tincture for Hot Fever/Colds/Flu

 1 cup Elderberries on the fresh side

1/2 cup dry Elder Flowers

1/4 cup dry Echinacea root

4 heaping tsp. dry Boneset

in a bottle of Everclear

Elderberry-Ginger-Horehound in Brandy
1/4 cup (scant) fresh Horehound leaves
1 cup Elderberries on the fresh side
1/2 cup dry Elder Flowers
3“ knob fresh Ginger, chopped
in Brandy



Elderberry-Ginger Kombucha 

(Note:  You may have to really cultivate a scoby that will take to it.  If it floats and froths, it's working.)

2 qt mason jar with small mouth
a little less than 2 qts water
2 inch knob fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon dried elderberries
1/2 tp 3/4 cup sugar (I like that Sugar In The Raw)
4 strong or 6 weak teabags (Tetley makes very full strong round teabags of a robust tea, others are wimpy.  They are NOT all equal)

Bring the water with herbs and sugar to boil, turn off and toss in tea bags.   Brew until cool enough to introduce it to the scoby.  Strain and pour in when cool.  Cover jar top with a layer of paper or cloth towel and rubber band, and wrap a cloth napkin around the jar to keep it dark.  I put mine on my stove top, the pilot light keeps the surface a PERFECT temperature -- maybe 75 10 90 degrees F.  Whatever, it's consistently perfect.  I think it brewed 5 days on the stovetop.

Your batch will fail without the right consistent heat element.   If your scoby fails to come up and float, it's dead probably.  Very discouraging but keep trying if you have extra scobies.  I took a layer off a fat one that consistently made ginger-black tea kombucha (all I make really) in one step, so it already was tuned to ginger.  And the antiseptic properties of ginger are helping too probably.

I also like the small mouth jars because it forces the regenerating scoby to produce it's layers underneath, rather than spreading out to the surface of a big jar opening, which is often yucky.

Decant into a clean bottle after 5-7 days.  Note that because elderberry is a sour, bitter fruit, and the fermentation process tends to sourness, more sugar may need to be added to taste at the time of decanting.  Taste it at this juncture.  Also extra sugar added at decanting will help it fizz up.

Put the bottles in a warm dark place, doing fizz relief on the cork or bottle top EACH day (or they may explode if you are not using flip top growler bottles), for another 5 to 7 days or so, or until the right fizziness is acheived.

I also recently have combined elderberry and blackberry/raspberry kombuchas at the time of decanting into a bottle, it's a delicious blend.  Elderberry pineapple is also very good.

"Cheers!!" Eldeberry Ginger Kombucha served on the rocks like a scotch

 How to make an Herbal Alcoholic TINCTURE:

Tinctures are super easy, compared to many other herbal preparations.  There isn’t much room to goof up.  They typically don’t spoil or get mouldy in process.  The procedure is very simple:  Macerate.  Acquire plant matter, chop up or coarse grind in a blender, fill a jar 1/2 to 3/4 full, and cover completely with booze (your choice) or another extraction medium.  You have just created a maceration.


Let it sit in a warm dark place that is neither too cold or too hot for 3-6 weeks or more.  Shake or stir frequently with a wooden chopstick.  Decant when it’s done.  First do a gross decanting (straining) into a bowl or jar, let it sit overnight so that fine particles can sink to the bottom, then pour off the good liquid into a final clean bottle, discarding the sludge.  Do label and date your tinctures clearly and store out of sunlight.

How to Choose the Booze:

It is totally up to the tincture maker, though I find I exclusively prefer Everclear, which is grain alcohol, for the majority of my extractions.  It just produces the most potent medicinals.  Brandy I also use as a preservative ingredient for tonics as well as for several tincture blends I like to make.  Taste is always a factor, as well as the potency.   Vodka I do not care for at all in orally taken tinctures but am finding it works great for liniments.  Rum would be my next choice after Brandy for alcoholic tinctures/tonics.

Everclear costs $20 a bottle at Senders Market in Mtn. Ranch, I highly recommend trying it.




Tinctures can be made with most botanicals, although you will want to do some research and find out
if alcohol really is the best extraction medium.  For example, comfrey is best extracted by water rather than alcohol or oil.  And Purslane precipitates out of solution in alcohol, as it also prefers water or vinegar.  Mints tincture well but are abysmal in oil infusions.  These are things one learns through trial and error, as well as research.

Vegetable glycerin is interesting and has some properties peculiar to it;  It’s an ideal extraction medium for tinctures made for children as it’s sweet tasting and non-alcoholic.   However it prefers to take the botanicals on the fresh side rather than dried.  I buy Vegetable Glycerin at Gold Trail Health Food Store in Jackson, CA, it’s around $14 for a 16 oz  bottle.



Acetums are a new wonderful addition to my herbal arsenal.  They are a true Food as Medicine staple now in my kitchen, with different blends evolving for different seasons.  Use what’s out there, pick the summer herbs to dry to make blends for winter use.  An herbal acetum is a great base for salad dressing, or sprinkle on rice and veggies, potatoes, eggs, in soups, they are delicious.  Be sure and use Bragg Apple Cider Vinegar as it is a live culture.




How and when to take alcoholic tinctures:
There is a whole science of exactly how much tincture one should take according to body weight.  If you have extreme doubts, by all means follow that.  You will have to google it.  Here is one set of guidelines:



DOSING GUIDELINES FOR HERBAL TINCTURES
from the website myhealingpath.com
The Healing Path Herbal tinctures can be taken in accordance to “body weight”. For every 50 pounds of body weight – take one dropper full of tincture. If for some reason you should skip a dose simply double the next dose.
     

The general guideline is as follows:

 30 pounds = 15 * DROPS two times daily
*Drops not droppers full

 50 pounds = 1 Dropper full two times daily

100 pounds = 2 Droppers full two times daily

150 pounds = 3 Droppers full two times daily

200  pounds = 4 Droppers full two X’s daily

250 pounds = 5 Droppers full two X’s daily

300 pounds = 6 Droppers full two X’s daily

I have an alternative methodology that also works.

When:  If you feel you are coming down with something, that is the optimal time to start on a non-toxic, medicinal wellness tincture like an elderberry or horehound blend because in many cases the cold or flu will be nipped in the bud and never materialize.

I have made and continue to make a variety of wellness tinctures featuring these 2 herbs to be taken in a low dose, tonic fashion, as the basis for daily on-going respiratory and immune support.  Other strong blends like turkey tails, garlic, usnea moss and other anti-biotic and anti-virals I save for when I really need them.

How Much:  The thing with herbals is you have to get enough into your system at first, so I recommend taking half filled droppers of something like elderberry tincture every half hour for the first 6 hours one feels sick.  This is for an average sized adult, certainly use less for a smaller being. Symptoms may start moving around quickly, with lots of mucous releasing.  It speeds things up.

Taper off as the symptoms really recede, maybe going to half as much for a couple days, slowly reducing as the bug goes away.  Start using the tonic right away if there are throat issues.  This tonic (recipe below) can be used as a cough syrup as well as an on-going low dose immune booster and respiratory aid, especially if there is an entrenched cough.

 If it’s a bad tasting tincture you are using, make a drink with tomato or other juice, or hot tea, so that you can take it.   You may be amazed that your body will actually find something that ordinarily would taste nasty to taste not bad when you need it!  And by the way, the following tonic recipe tastes very good!  Especially with the addition of pomegranate or cranberry.

Basic HoreHound Ginger Respiratory Tonic Recipe

 with Elderberry

This recipe is based on a particular size ceramic pot I have for making small batches of decoctions.  It holds about 6-8 cups of water.   Herbs are best processed in glass pots as some botanicals can cause metal to leach into the mixture.  Many of the lesser ingredients can be varied, but I would always include the ginger, horehound, cardamom, comfrey and any immune system boosting herbs like astragalus and echinacea root that I could find.  Note also that echinacea purpurea, while not as potent as echinacea angustifolia, will do fine.

Step 1:  Make the decoction by bringing 6-8 cups water to a boil.   Add the following:

2-inch knob of fresh ginger, chopped

I heaping TBSP dried elderberry
1 tsp. cardamom seed (if using whole pods use a good heaping TBSP)
1 cinnamon stick
10 cloves
1 tsp. coriander seed
1 tsp. black peppercorns
1 tsp. fennel seed
2 TBSP Astragalus root
2 TBSP Echinacea root
2-4 small pieces dried yellow dock root
rind of one organic lemon (squeeze and reserve the juice for later)
10 small pieces dried Comfrey root or the fresh root of a mid sized Mallow plant, dug, washed and chopped.

Simmer all ingredients until the water is reduced by half, usually 2 hours or more.

Step 2:   Add the more delicate leafy botanicals (and fruit bits) and infuse
scant 2 cups chopped fresh White Horehound
1 tsp dried Yerba Santa
Optional ingredients when not using elderberry --
1/3 cup dried pomegranate, pineapple or cranberry bits

Make sure it comes to a boil, stir it around to incorporate all the leafy matter, cover and remove from heat.  Allow to steep for an extended period of time.  Can sit there overnight and be fine but I wouldn’t go longer than 16 hours or so.

Step 3:  Strain, add sugar and reduce down again.
Strain out the liquid using a fine mesh strainer.  Rinse out the pot, and return the strained liquid, measuring it as you go.  I usually add about half (or less) as much sugar as I have liquid.  It’s up to you.  Reduce it down again by 1/3 to 1/2.  It should be a semi-syrup.


Step 4:  Add Brandy and Lemon
Pour into a jar (yes, measure and write it down), add 1 cup Brandy and the strained fresh juice of 2 lemons.

Keep refrigerated.  It will keep many weeks or months if kept cold and not contaminated by dipping the spoon repeatedly in.

When and how much to take:
This is a product that can be taken every day as needed.  It’s particularly good for soothing and knocking out a nagging cough or ragged throat.  It gives the immune and respiratory systems a little added extra boost in the direction of wellness in a low dose fashion.   Take it by the tablespoonfuls as needed, one or 2 spoonfuls at a time.  I have also carried it around in a dropper bottle for a bad cough but the lemon juice does degrade the unchilled product.  I have made this a whole bunch over the course of some years and have a good handful of people who now request it.  It’s a very nice and useful product.

For Further Reading and Research:
http://naturalsociety.com/black-elderberry-natural-cold-flu-treatment/
http://www.thedailysheeple.com/elderberry-extract-natures-tamiflu_012013
http://www.topsecretwriters.com/2013/04/elderberry-cold-medicine-companies-may-not-want-you-to-know/
http://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/e/elder-04.html
http://www.wildplantforager.com/1/post/2013/05/5-delicious-elder-flower-recipes-other-than-just-syrup.html
http://honest-food.net/veggie-recipes/sweets-and-syrups/elderflower-liqueur/
http://www.pinterest.com/floralmedleys/elder-flower-recipes/
http://honest-food.net/2012/04/27/elderflower-cordial-recipe/
http://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/e/elder-04.html
http://www.stepintomygreenworld.com/greenliving/greenfoods/a-natural-flu-shot/
http://showmeoz.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/a-walk-on-the-wild-side-elderberries/
http://preventdisease.com/news/14/060414_Elderberry-Extract-Outperforms-Medication-By-Inhibiting-Growth-Pathogenic-Bacteria-99-Percent.shtml

Be Well!!