How to Make Oregano Thyme Elixir: an Anti-microbial Powerhouse!

Good morning all, this is Corinne from Spirea Herbs and Snail Trails Homestead and today I'm going to be making an oregano thyme elixir. So I hope you can join me and learn how to make this great medicine to have on hand during the winter months and cold and flu season. So it's really windy here today. We often have high winds here but it's even worse than normal. But I wanted to make a quick note of the statement I just said about cold and flu season. As a herbal practitioner I don't actually think we have a cold and flu season per se. What I think we have is a bunch of coincidental things that all happen right around the same time that create sort of like a perfect storm. So you know come the cooler temperatures we're not consuming as much water so we're dehydrated. We're not getting nearly enough vitamin D because we're not outside as much. Probably not getting enough vitamin C and then all in a row we have one, two, three, four different holidays that promote over consumption of both alcohol and sweets. So I'm talking Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas and then of course New Year's. And then often winter is very stressful for people. So you've got this reduction in you know anti-inflammatories, reduction in vitamin D, you're not drinking enough water, you're stressed out and now you're eating a lot of food and drinking too much alcohol. So I think that's what really contributes to you know what I termed the cold and flu season. But my family is full of humans and you're human and you know we might have too many sweets especially come the winter holidays times. And you know there might be some alcohol consumption and maybe I am a bit stressed out because this is my busiest time of year. So I really like to have these herbal allies on hand just in case I need them. So I'm going to show you my thyme and oregano garden or what's left of it and teach you a little bit how to harvest it. So what exactly is an elixir? If you've ever made a cup of tea before you know that the extraction medium for pulling the medicine from the plants is water. If you've ever made a tincture before then you know that the extraction medium is alcohol. So it's the alcohol that pulls all of the chemical constituents and medicinal properties of the plant out. You strain out the herb material and you're left with basically a herb infused alcohol that is a tincture. An elixir is very similar. It's basically a sweetened tincture. So in this case the menstruum or the medium we're using to extract our medicinal properties is a combination of alcohol and honey. Some folks have used maple syrup before. I personally find honey better mostly from a price point perspective because it's cheaper for me to buy honey than it is maple syrup. But basically an elixir is a sweetened tincture so both the honey and the alcohol are used as mediums for extracting the medicinal properties. So first things first I'm going to start with my oregano. Now I'd like to mention we've had a couple of frosts but the oregano and the thyme are both still alive. When it comes to making tinctures for my clinic I would really prefer harvesting my oregano in the summer usually around July or so mid to late July depends on the year of course. But a lot of this is still really healthy and I really like having a thyme oregano elixir on hand. Oregano itself is a broad spectrum antimicrobial so it's going to cover your bacterial infections, any fungus issues you're dealing with, protozoal issues and viruses. So while it may not be an immune stimulant itself, it's really great at battling the actual nasties that cause our illnesses and I really like having it on hand for bacterial issues especially if you end up having pneumonia or anything like that. It's also a really good decongestant and a really good expectorant so this is why I would have my oregano. Ideally you're going to harvest equal amounts of oregano and thyme but it's going to depend on what your garden is doing and I'm probably going to take about the top I'd say 30 to 35 percent of the plant keeping in mind that I'm going to strip all of the leaves off when I get into the house and because the stem is inert right stems in most plants are mostly fiber their job is to hold up the plant so it can reach sun. So I'll take the best looking plants that I have and harvest the top 30 to 35 percent or so. I may even take some of the flowers if they still look good. Like I said keeping in mind that you're going to be stripping off all of the leaves when you're thinking about weight or how much it'll fill in a jar. Okay and here's what's left of my thyme. I don't have as much thyme as I have oregano so this one might be a little heavier on the oregano end of things. There's a nice little close-up here and thyme is much woodier in the stem department than oregano is so you're going to have to harvest a lot more of it if you want equal portions of thyme and oregano. Thyme is also an amazing antibacterial antifungal and antiviral. It's a really fantastic herb for fevers too so that's why I like to include this one as well and also a very good decongestant and expectorant. So again not specifically an immune stimulant. Very loud, very windy, I hope you guys can hear me. Not specifically an immune stimulant but it will cover all the other areas so I would still consume this with like an echinacea or an elderberry syrup to cover the immune stimulating part. And similar I'm going to harvest about the top 30% or so and get a little close there. I'm sure it's blurry. About top 30% or so and again especially in the case of thyme this is a very woody stalk so I'm going to be stripping off all the leaves when I get inside. So you're going to have to harvest about double the amount of thyme to oregano if you would like equal portions. All right so I've got my herbs harvested. I have my oregano and it smells fantastic and my thyme just over here. I had to harvest them last night. I knew I wasn't going to have enough time to finish the video yesterday and I also knew it was going to pour buckets today so I harvested them last night and kept them in water and they're doing great. So I want to talk about how much plant material to harvest for making our oregano thyme elixir. So the first thing I want you to think about is what size vessel are you going to be filling. Are you going to be making a pint I think is what these are called in the states a pint or 500 milliliters or a quart a liter or will you be making less than that. So I want you to think about that so that's going to help you determine you know how much herb to harvest. But there's also two schools of thought when it comes to making remedies home remedies like this. There's more of a folk method which doesn't involve a whole lot of measuring and then there's a more clinical sort of scientific method. For the folk method you're basically going to be loosely filling your jar. So you can kind of hairy eyeball it when you're outside and and figure out you know how much plant material to harvest to fill whichever size jar you're choosing. And again we kind of want the ratios to be 50-50 if possible 50% oregano 50% thyme. So the folk method would be loosely filling your jar. If you make products for sale it's really important that there is uniformity to what you're doing and that you have kind of a standardized process. Years ago when I was a teenager I used to work at McDonald's and one of the things that we learned in training is that every single Big Mac that ever goes out and I was just using the Big Mac as an example every single one has to be exactly the same. So if someone in British Columbia is buying a Big Mac and someone in Manitoba is buying one in essence they should be almost identical. And when it comes to producing products for sale standardization and having very specific measurements is incredibly important. You know the opposite thinking of that is more of your folk herbalist which is like a pinch of this a dash of that and that's fine too for home-based remedies. I still prefer having some kind of standardization like I said like loosely filling a jar you know like this year you don't want to half fill it and the next year you know three quarters you know you just want to have some level of standardization. But if you're selling products or if you're a clinical herbalist like I am who have folks come to your clinic it's really important that I have very specific standard ratios. So for a 500 milliliter jar for fresh herb material I'm going to use 87 grams. These are the measurements that I learned in school and this roughly gets you a five to one ratio which is how I like to make most of my tinctures and how I do most of my medicines. Just as an interesting side note if you ask a thousand herbalist how to make an elixir you're going to get a thousand and one different answers. I don't think that means that a thousand of the answers are wrong and one is right. I think that just means that we all do things a little bit differently. So keep that in mind this is my method this is what I was taught if this doesn't feel right to you if this doesn't feel good to you then use a different method or find another herbalist that you you jag with. So like I said I'm going to be using 87 grams of fresh herb material from my 500 milliliter jar. If I harvested enough to make a liter which I don't think I did it's 174 grams of fresh herb material. So I will show you how I strip off the the leaves from the stems and then we'll go through the whole process of making the elixir. So with regards to how much fresh herb material you should use decide if you're going to be a little more folksy today in herbal medicine and you're just planning on loosely filling your jar or decide if you're going to be really scientific and you want that five to one ratio that I was discussing in which case you're going to need a kitchen scale and you're going to need 87 grams for making a pint size and this is a good size to start with you know to make sure your family uses it up that you actually like it. What's also nice about working with culinary herbs that are also medicinal herbs any extra that you harvested you can just dry for culinary spices to use later in your favorite recipes so you don't have to worry about anything going to waste. So I'll show you now how I see the easiest method for stripping off the oregano and thyme and then we'll go ahead and we'll make our elixir. All right so as I mentioned before the stem or the stalk of most plants is fairly inert it's mostly fiber so when we're making medicines we don't want to in essence water down our really like I mean this is a really tough tough tough stem on this oregano and we don't want to water down our end product by adding so much of a fibrous stalk. So I've dusted off all my plants to make sure there's nothing you know no dirt or anything in them and the easiest way to strip the leaves is holding the plant so the plant grows upwards this way so you want to do it opposite and you're going to take your thumb your your your pointer finger and you're just going to slide along the stem and that see how I've just stripped that whole stalk off there we go I have just stripped off all the leaves of my oregano. The ones at the top can be a little trickier so I'll just pull those ones off and I'm going to do that with all of my thyme and all of my oregano. So here is a nice little sprig of thyme and it's the exact same thing you just want to go in the opposite direction in which it grows take your thumb and your pointer finger and just slide down the stem and that's the easiest way to strip off all of the leaves on your plant material so you want to go ahead and do that keeping your oregano and thyme separate. All right so once you've stripped off all of your leaves from your oregano and your thyme you are ready to make your elixir so you're going to need an alcohol of some kind. I personally prefer vodka again this is going to be one of those questions that if you ask a hundred herbalists you're going to get a hundred different answers. Vodka seems to be the most commonly used alcohol for tinctures. It's fairly inexpensive, it doesn't have any medicinal properties of its own, it has a very neutral taste and there's no sugar in it. You really don't want to use any liqueurs or anything like that for making tinctures. I know a lot of herbalists also like using brandy and brandy is a nice option as well but I'll be using my own homemade menstruum today because I'm a practicing herbalist I am actually able to buy commercial alcohol which is nice and then I water it down. It's basically the same as vodka and you're going to need your sweetener whatever your sweetener of choice is and today I'm going to be using honey. So as you can see I have stripped the leaves of my thyme and my oregano. Now I ended up with a lot more oregano than thyme so mine's going to end up being three times the amount of oregano to thyme which is fine as long as I label it that way and I know that that's what's in my jar that's perfectly fine to do and I'm going to be using the more scientific clinical method in which case I need 87 grams of herbs for my 500 milliliter or pint size jar and so there's sort of two schools of thought about this too. As I learned more about herbal medicine and I studied with different people I realized that there are vastly different ways to do things and again that's perfectly fine. So I was taught and trained to chop my herbs before I put them in my jar when I'm making my tinctures, elixirs, oxamels, anything like that I have always chopped my herbs. But you're going to have some herbalists out there that say no you can put them in whole don't chop them you know it damages the plant that type of thing. The reason why I chop plant material is because it increases the surface area in which the plant is exposed to the alcohol so the more finely I chop it the more surface area is exposed to the alcohol and the greater amount of medicinal properties or chemical constituents are extracted from the plants. Now once you start chopping your herbs they will immediately be exposed to oxygen which means they're going to start to oxidize. So if you do decide to chop your herbs and also check this out right look at the amount of plant material I'm supposed to cram into a 500 milliliter jar in order to have that five to one ratio I want that's almost impossible if you don't chop them first. So if you're doing a more folk method and you don't want to chop your herbs you're going to be using a lot less plant material something to keep in mind. But as I said once I start chopping my plants I'm going to be exposing them to oxygen so this isn't something that you're going to want to start doing and then take a phone call from grandma you know and then come back to it 45 minutes later. Be really mindful of what you're doing work quickly and efficiently but safely you are using a knife and get those herbs chopped up really well and once you've got them covered with your honey and your alcohol and your lids on and everything's secured then you can take your call from grandma. So I personally prefer chopping I'm going to have 87 grams of herb material and I'm going to start doing that now. So like I said if you prefer to just use more of a folk method chop your herbs and loosely fill the jar that's great too. But I'm going to Now one of my absolute favorite knives for chopping herbs is a mezzaluna. It gets its name obviously because the blade is shaped like a crescent moon. This makes very very short work of chopping plant material so if you don't have a mezzaluna I highly recommend getting one. I got mine at a kitchen store that I just happened to be walking past and I have seen some on Amazon. I strongly encourage you not to get the double bladed mezzalunas. Those do exist so they have two blades. I find that the herbs just get gunked up in the blades and you end up spending more time cleaning it out than you do actually chopping. But it makes very short work of chopping culinary herbs, spices, medicinal plants, even if you want to use the same blade. I have one that's for medicine and one that's for food but you know this works really well for greens and that kind of thing too. Anything that you need finely chopped way faster than using a regular single bladed knife. As you can see I'm almost done. I think I lost a piece of oregano on the floor but that's all right. So I want to chop this fairly finely but at the same time like I said I want to work quickly. I'm not going to spend the next 15 minutes meticulously making sure that every piece is the exact same size because I'm very aware that my plant material is oxidizing right now. So have I sold you on a mezzaluna yet? Every time I break one of these out in my herb classes my students are like where did you get that? I also recommend getting a fairly wide stance one. I've seen them really small and they're very cumbersome to work with. So check out your local kitchen store. I find they've got a much better selection than Amazon when it comes to the really good kitchen gadgets. If I do find a good one on Amazon when I post this I'll put the link below so you can check it out. So I'm feeling pretty good about how my herbs have been chopped. They're nice and uniform. I've mixed the thyme and the oregano together. This kind of gives you an idea of how finely I've chopped my herb material and now I'm going to put it in my jar and I really like using wide mouth funnels because as you can see I've already dropped bits of thyme and oregano all over the floor. I am not a tidy home cook or herbalist by any standard so I like using the wide mouth funnel. So prior to me chopping this there's no way that this 87 grams of herb material was going to fit in my jar. So if you do decide as I mentioned to go more scientific you're definitely going to have to chop your herbs. If you really don't want to chop your plant material for whatever reason, whatever your reasoning may be, then you'll definitely have to use less. It depends on the herbs. Roots and barks and twigs are heavier so you don't usually have to and if you're against chopping. All right so I've filled up my jar with plant material. So the next thing I'm going to do is put my honey in my omixer and in this case I'm going to use, I'm going to fill the jar about a third of the way with honey. So it takes some time for the honey to settle to the bottom but I'm going to fill about a third of the way. So in order to do that I'm going to use a measuring cup which is actually right here. As you can tell I'm not super prepared today. So I'm going to put my honey in, filling to about a third of the way and if you can get raw local honey that is I think the best bet. You know get to know your local beekeeper. One, you're absolutely assured that you're actually buying honey which these days is something to be concerned about and two, it retains all of its raw qualities which means it's going to have extra nutritional and medicinal benefits itself. Carefully pour my honey. Like I said it's going to take a little bit of time for that honey to settle out over the herbs. So sometimes I grab, if I'm in a rush and I don't want to wait for it all to kind of settle through the plant material, I will go and grab a chopstick and give it a really good stir. So in this case I used about a half a cup of honey. So when I say a third of the jar you have to think that you're also, you need to take into consideration that you've got a whole bunch of plants in your jar right now. So they take up space. So I used about a half a cup of honey and the rest I'm going to top off with my alcohol of choice which for me is something very similar to vodka. Depending on the herb you use, brandy can be really nice. Say you're making an elderberry elixir, brandy is really yummy with elderberries. I personally like the more vodka and honey flavor for the oregano and thyme. I think it gives it a really nice flavor. And then you're just going to top off with your menstruum or your alcohol. And this takes a little bit of fiddling because the honey acts almost like a little bit as a barrier blocking the alcohol from going down and covering the herb material. So I kind of just pour and stir as I go. So for that 500 milliliter jar I used about a half a cup of honey which usually covers the plant material about one third of the way as I mentioned. So give it a good stir making sure that all that plant material is covered. And that looks like that's going to be about it. So you want to top off your jar the rest of the way with your alcohol of choice. Like I said just stay away from liqueurs, anything really loaded with sugar. Don't use beer. Don't use beer. Just drink beer if you like beer. Don't use beer because you want something that has at least a 30 percent alcohol content. 30 to 40 percent. So my jar is almost all the way full so I'm going to top it off just a little bit more. You don't want it to overflow but you also don't want a lot of oxygen exposure. So resist the urge to use a jar that's way too big for what you're making and only fill it halfway because there is still going to be oxygen in that vessel. If you're using a mason jar the alcohol will absolutely corrode your metal lids. So a really great hack or trick is just to put a piece of parchment paper on top of your jar and then screw on your lid. This is going to prevent the alcohol from corroding your lid and then you don't have to worry about metals and rust and stuff like that contaminating your medicine. This is also true if you're making anything infused in vinegar. So like a fire cider or a herbal infused vinegar you really really want to put like a layer of parchment paper in between the lid and the jar and no you can't use wax paper. The alcohol in the apple cider vinegar degrades the wax as well so then you're going to end up with wax in your medicine. So here is my jar of oregano thyme elixir. So the final step is making sure that you label your jar. I like using painter's tape. It comes off really easily. You just use a small piece. So you want to label it with what you made. So in my case I did a 5 to 1 ratio of herb to alcohol but 3 to 1 ratio of oregano to thyme elixir. You want to put a date on there as well and every time you store it in a cool dark place and every time you think about it you know give it a good shake. Make sure that you know all those herbs are being kissed by the honey and the alcohol and after about two to three months ideally three months but you know what if you get hit with a bug in two months strain it out. So you want to strain out all of your herb material. If you've got cheesecloth you can give it a good squeeze. If you have a potato ricer I'll put a link below to that. A potato ricer makes a really great tincture press. So you want to squeeze out all that herb material, filter it all out and then you'll be taking the actual elixir. And I would probably take you know depending on how sick you are and what's going on two to three droppers. So a dropper for those who don't know so these dropper bottles are standardized when it comes to measuring out herb like tinctures and so if you squeeze the bulb once your pipette is going to fill about halfway and that is a dropper. It is a lot easier to do that than measuring out you know single drops. So I would do about two to three droppers or say maybe a half a teaspoon to a teaspoon depending on how sick you are and what you've got going on. There are contraindications when it comes to thyme and oregano. So just be aware that you should not be using this elixir if you're pregnant because of the fresh. Oh my goodness so many bloopers in this and I don't have any more herb material to cut that out. That's fine. So you're not going to want to use your elixir if you're pregnant. You know oregano does have some contraindications because it does have some stimulating uterine properties and you're not going to want to use your thyme if you're on any anti-convulsive sedative or mood altering medications because thyme does have some medicinal effects in that area as well. When I talked about the medicinal properties I only mentioned the ones that would be applicable for when we're sick like the fever reducing properties, the expectorant and you know the antimicrobial properties. So always practice safe herbal medicine if you're on meds or if you're pregnant or nursing feel free to comment below, send me an email and I can guide you in this way as to what's safe and what isn't. So I hope you enjoyed making your oregano thyme elixir. If you're going to be doing it this year please put a comment below and let me know how you enjoyed the process and yes you absolutely can use dried herbs. If you don't have access to fresh, if your plants have all been killed off and you want to use dried herbs you can do that. You're just going to use them in smaller amounts so if you're following the more kind of clinical process that I had mentioned for dried herbs you're going to want 63 grams, 63 grams of herb material total so that's 63 of oregano and thyme combined. If you're using more the folk method then you're probably going to fill your jar about halfway with dried herbs and you definitely want to let that one sit for at least three months just because I find that the dried herbs are not as potent as fresh so they need a little bit longer time sitting. You can like this video, share it with your friends, if you've enjoyed it you can follow me on YouTube of course, Facebook, Instagram and all that jazz and happy medicine making guys.