SAGE HEALTH BENEFITS ~ MAKING SAGE ELIXER AND TINCTURE

Hello friends and welcome back to our homestead. Today I harvested a few of my herbs from my herb garden because we're expecting some cool possibly even freezing weather and rain for the next few days. So I wanted to harvest them now so I can go ahead and utilize them for my homemade remedies. And I want to guys show you what I'm going to be doing with this guy. Oh my goodness sage, common sage. The Latin name is Sylvia officialis and actually in translation from Latin it means to cure. Isn't that amazing that this common sage that we're putting into chicken stuffing, turkey stuffing or whatever, just regular culinary herb is so wonderful. So today I'm going to be making a couple of my home remedies that I can use later on in the season when I need them. Okay, very often people come to me because they know I study herbs, I use herbs, I grow herbs because that's what I do. And they ask me, hey mama Lil, what should I be using for this and that? And I always say you need to prepare. Right now this is the time to prepare for the season of flu and cold that's coming later in the season. Okay, right now it's early October, the fall is here, the days are getting shorter, it's getting cooler, getting windier. So friends, I suggest make some remedies. Make some remedies so when the cold season gets here we will be ready. But sage, sage is a really cool plant. Yes, you can cook with it, you can dry it and you can use it culinary or you can use it fresh, you can sprinkle on top of your already prepared food or you can put it into roasting. It's a really really good aromatic plant. I love it. But also it is medicinal okay and it has many different wonderful properties. So instead of me just talking about it, let me show you what I'm gonna do with it and as I'm working on it I'll explain. But a quick disclaimer. A disclaimer is I'm not a doctor so this is for educational purposes only. So I hope you guys are enjoying this. Please leave comments, ask questions. I love to share my knowledge and my experiences. But I just want you to know that because this is educational only, please always seek medical professional help if in case you need it. All right, so here's my sage and I'm gonna be making two separate things using the sage. I'm gonna be making a tincture, a regular basic tincture and I'm gonna be making an elixir. An elixir I'm gonna be using the fresh sage, I'm gonna be using some 100 proof vodka and my raw organic local honey. So what is the sage good and it's good for many many things and sage is known as a low dose herb meaning that less is more. Less is more meaning that you don't have to use awfully a lot of it because people who use a lot of it you can actually have some issues with your kidneys or with liver. So first things I'm gonna start I have a jar and this is a beautiful little jar I have here and you can use any size you want and I'm gonna take the whole thing like this stems and leaves and I'm gonna start chopping it up and dropping it into my jar like this. All right and I'm gonna try to fill it up about halfway maybe a little bit more. So what is sage used for? So hopefully I don't make a lot of mess. Sage is used to help with headaches all right because it contains a couple of cool components one of them is carcinol, carcinol and um or salic acid and they contribute to blocking the pain. All right another ingredient is salvinogen and salvinogen is also known as a analgesic meaning that it's to treat pain. So since we're talking about that so besides headaches it's also can be used to assist with PMS symptoms with PMS cramps. So besides the warm bottle on your lower belly ladies and with some we can mix sage with peppermint with fennel with ginger and it's a really good as a remedy for menstrual cramps. Ladies if you are suffering from hot flushes night sweats let me tell you this is your friend but don't use too much of it all right. You can use it as tincture or as tea or you can put it in your bath like steep it like almost like a tea bag in your bath you can do that or as an elixir. All right and it helps with hot flushes night sweats that sort of thing. I know it can be used for digestive aid so if you're having indigestion, abdominal gas, discomfort, diarrhea this also can be used as as digestive aid. All right it supports gut health as well so I think it's a really good herb to have on hand. I mean it's delicious with mushroom and with chicken but it's also good to have in your medicine cabinet. All right so if you guys have that hacking annoying mucusy cough this is also a drying herb. It's a drying herb and it helps with excess secretions too much of secretions so it's a drying herb and because it's a drying herb you got to be careful because you don't want to be dehydrated that sort of thing. All right so I'm just gonna keep chopping it up I'm gonna push it down a little bit I'm gonna push it down a little bit I want to see how much I've got here all right so I'm just gonna push it down all right I'm gonna put a little bit more in here because I do have more I'm gonna put a little bit more and the reason why I like to chop it all up is because it opens up more surface area and more medicinal properties can be extracted by our solvents. All right so this is gonna be my elixir and for my elixir I'm gonna be putting vodka half one part vodka and one part honey so it's going to be one-to-one oh let me cut this one a little bit more it's a big leaf fell in here you can leave them as whole leaves but I like to chop them up so it's going to be one-to-one of vodka and honey. Honey has also some moisture in it so it's going to extract that water soluble properties in a sage all right and I always encourage people to use good quality vodka excuse me good quality honey from your local source you know where it comes from you know it's not mixed in or diluted with any kind of corn syrup or anything or molasses or anything like that so in my case I know we have good quality home raised honey my papa is a wonderful beekeeper so I'm just going to be pouring it in here in case your honey is crystallizing then you can just put it in a warm like stick the whole jar in a warm water not boiling water because you don't want to kill any beneficial constituents in and so it will get soft like this like almost runny all right so I'm just gonna grab a couple of wooden sticks to make sure that all of this honey will actually go to the bottom of my jar have you noticed how I'm not measuring anything everything is an eyeball for me all right so let me just grab those sticks all right so I'm just gonna put those sticks on the bottom allowing all the honey to go down to the bottom of my jar so elixir can be used by teaspoon a teaspoon and a half when you whenever you need to use it I like to put my elixir right into my tea when I make tea that is my sweetener for my tea all right so um tea you can dry this and make tea out of it so just dry chop them up and dry them and then you can make tea out of it so tea can be used one to two cups a day if you need to all right but elixir I'm gonna use a teaspoon or a teaspoon and a half all right so everything just fell to the bottom just as I want it all right so let me take all this honey off it's super sweet super super delicious all right okay all right and now I'm just gonna top everything off with 100 proof vodka my camera cut out and it did not record as I mixed everything together so I added alcohol all the way to the top and then I just made sure everything is mixed together and now I'm gonna put this in a cool dark place storage most likely in my pantry for about six to eight weeks and then I will strain everything and only it's gonna leave me with elixir which is gonna be very good and shell stable why because it has so much alcohol in it okay and I'm gonna be using it as I need it with measurement teaspoon or teaspoon and a half or so so but also I'm gonna be making some tincture and tinctures are super simple to make I prefer to make tinctures with fresh plant material I know you can also use dried but there's then different formulas you have to apply you have to add certain amount of water to certain amount by weight of your dry herb certain amount of vodka 100 proof vodka if you use a fresh plant material it's so much easier all of the thinking goes right out the window it's much much easier to do so in case you guys are interested I purchased this book at the conference in New Hampshire and this book is by Maria Noel Groves she's really cool I met her she's really really good a cool I really enjoyed her presentation so she talks about you can make a tincture using a fresh plant material doing what ratio one to two so fresh is one to two in 95 percent alcohol basically it's much easier there's no thinking involved when it comes to how much water to add however if you're using dried the percentage now excuse me the ratio now is one to five meaning that you're gonna need 50 or 60 percent alcohol and now you have to weigh it by by weight I avoid all of that I just do one to two which is I'm gonna be filling up my jar halfway with a fresh plant material which I'm gonna chop it up and I'm gonna top everything off with vodka which is 100 proof vodka all right so here is my sage and I'm gonna be again taking scissors and chopping everything up in fine pieces and you guys can be as creative as you want if you want to use knife you can use knife you can use scissors you can use scissors you want to tear it by your hand you can tear it by hand really does not matter so I do not wash my herbs when I'm making a tincture because I do not want to bring any more um any more moisture in here okay now the the the rule of thumb for myself for my personal um preference I if the plant is super super low growing to the ground like um let me use an example say lavender no not lavender actually um plantain plantain now plantain grows so low to the ground that often when there's rain or anything dirt will get splashed on the leaves and then it's better to wash those leaves and quickly dry them before using but sage I cut up I cut the top portion of the plant so there is no need to wash it in my case so question may come up well in case I need to use sage as a tincture how much should I use I always suggest is that do your own research and try it on yourself okay and since I do not prescribe anything I can't really say how much to take but according to the book that I just mentioned to you guys she says that you can start with five drops and go up to 20 using it once or twice a day okay and it can be used on its own or you can um let me just cut this out this is brown piece or you can use it in a combination with other herbs okay so um my understanding and my practice has been always start low you can always increase it if in case you need it okay but always start low I'm not gonna use this one because it's already yellowed a little bit so I'm gonna put this guy aside all right so we have about half a cup actually less than that all right a little bit less so I'm not gonna fill it up all the way to the top and now I'm just gonna finish everything up with hunter proof vodka to make my tincture again my tincture is going to sit in a dark place again most likely in my pantry and I'm going to shake it once a day for the first week just turn it upside down upside down upside down okay and I'm just going to do that all right just like this however after that after that I'm gonna come and just do it once or twice a week for the next six to eight weeks and then at the end I'm gonna strain everything so sage in vodka making my label here it happened on October 2022 and I'm writing when it's going to be ready because on the mark when it's ready I'm going to strain it all strain it and squeeze all of the good properties right out of it and I'm gonna store it in this dark looking glass bottles with a dropper because we need to use it in drop forms okay so that's what my medicine is going to look like at the end so friends I hope you know that sage is not just for cooking even though it's delicious it can be used for our health benefits so please don't be afraid to do research okay go to a local market and buy good quality sage and make your own home remedies so on this note friends I hope you stay encouraged encouraged to treat your own family naturally okay study herbs because they were given to us for a reason all right so be encouraged and try something new