Lemon Verbena Living - Healing Extracts and Tinctures

Here are two wide-mouth quart canning jars filled with fresh and dried roots in raw cider vinegar. Of course I won't be storing them in the sunlight, that's just where they posed for this photo. 

I used fresh dandelion root and parsley root from my herb garden, and added dried dandelion root for intensity.

When herbs are steeped in vinegar (which includes Lemon Verbena) the resulting liquid is called a Vinegar Extract. 

Extracts made with vinegar capture the healing properties of fresh and dried roots and leaves, and have been used for centuries, particularly for children, elderly, animals and anyone choosing to avoid alcohol.

So, they can be consumed internally, but extracts can also be added to plain white vinegar or herb-infused vinegar as home-made cleansing products.

When herbs are steeped in alcohol, the resulting liquid is called a tincture. Lemon Verbena Tincture (which is also an extract) is not easy to find online or in natural food stores. It is very rare, which is why I make it by the gallon.
  
Tinctures have become popular in upscale bars, added to expensive alcoholic drinks for flavor and for novelty. Lemon Verbena Tincture is an elegant, lemony addition to the tincture shelf in any venue serving cocktails.

And it has healing qualities, too. A deep topic for another post, today I'll mention Lemon Verbena Tincture is used for it's antibacterial qualities and also as an aid to digestion. A few drops in a glass of water are all you need.