SC - feverfew

[marilyn traber]

Donna Kenton wrote: Sort of, on a grand scale.  It's basically a brick
"furnace" that they

> used to distill herbs for medicine.  There's a lower chamber for the
> fire, and above that, either water or sand (depending on what they
> were
> processing) into which the pots would sit.  The vapors from the water
> and herbs in the pot would rise, be caught, and condense, dripping
> into
> another pot.

Why do you want to do it on such a grand scale? I find foor household
use the smaller sizes are more reaistic.

there is a messy but nifty way to extract the ones too delicate for
alcohol or water distillation, fat extraction.

start with several panes of glass, smear them with fat-they used lard in
period, i go for veggie shortening.
place the flower[lilac is one specific, also mimosa] in the fat.
insert the pane into a slot in a closed box or cupboard. let rest
overnight.
the next am, pluck out the blossoms with tweezers[or your fingers if you
dont mind getting messy hands]
place more blossoms in the fat, repeat until the fat has a strong odor
of the flower you are extracting.
scrape the fat off, mix as per unguent directions with soft beeswax.

this takes care of those herbs and blossoms that are too delicate for
heating. i have read specifically used with lilac and mimosa, would work
with just about anything. If you are careful, you drop the fat in
alcohol which will gently float the essential oils on the surface where
youd skim them off and let the alcohol evaporate off, but it works
really well using the unguent method. I suppose if you wanted hand or
lip balm you could also use cocoa butter.

margali

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