Stir the Cauldron

November 18, 2020November 21, 2020

W is for: Wintergreen

A rambling historical introduction

Germany was occupied by Allied forces at the end of the Second World War. In 1949 Germany was divided. The Federal Republic of Germany was a democracy known as West Germany. The German Democratic Republic was known as East Germany and was largely controlled by the Soviet Union. It wasn’t quite the same sort of democracy as its neighbour. By 1955 West Germany had joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and had re-armed with the blessing of its allies. NATO forces remained in West Germany, but their role switched from occupation of a defeated nation to deterring aggression from the East. There were 55,000 British military personnel stationed in West Germany from 1955 until German reunification was formalized on 03 October 1990 .

I first saw the Inner German Border in the late 1960s. I was one of the 55,000 for a total of about 8 years across the 1970s and 1980s.

A cold day

Sometime in the 1980s I was preparing for a small-scale military exercise in the region of Germany called the Eifel. The Eifel is a range of hills between Belgium and Germany. On the Belgian side it is called the Ardennes. It was the site of the Battle of the Bulge, the last major Nazi offensive of WWII from 16 Dec 1944 – 25 Jan 1945. Our base for our training exercise was a military camp called Vogelsang (Bird Song) that was built as a training camp for Hitler Youth.

On a very chilly day, 3 of us walked the terrain we planned to use for a map-reading exercise. (Paper maps. No GPS. No satellite images. And no mobile phones.) Sometime in the afternoon we took refuge in a Gasthof (pub) to wait for our ride back to camp. Our host took pity on us. While we waited for our glasses of beer, he poured us each a shot of clear spirit from an ice-encrusted bottle he kept in a freezer. I won’t ever forget that experience.

Revisiting spirit from the Eifel

I didn’t identify the liquor from that pub in the Eifel for another ten years. It turned out to be Eifelgeist (literally, Eifel spirit). According to the distillery, it is made with 42 hand-picked herbs, spices and flowers. The distillery doesn’t divulge its secret ingredients, but I’m sure the dominant herb is Wintergreen.

For the last 25 years I’ve kept successive bottles of Eifelgeist and a couple of shot glasses in the household freezer. The bottle is retrieved just 2 or 3 times a year to work its warming magic.

Wintergreen essential oil

Wintergreen essential oil is extracted by steam distillation from a genus of plants called Gaultheria, the most common of which is likely the American wintergreen Gaultheria procumbens. The aromatic component of Wintergreens is methyl salicylate. As well as being extracted from plants, methyl salicylate is synthesised.

I looked up the entry for Wintergreen essential oil in Julia Lawless’ Encyclopaedia of Essential Oils. Among other things, this is what it says:

ARMOATHERAPY/HOME USE None. ‘Avoid both internally and externally.’

The WebMD entry for wintergreen oil includes:

Wintergreen oil is POSSIBLY UNSAFE to take by mouth. Taking wintergreen oil can cause ringing in the ears, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea (US spelling!), headache, stomach pain, and confusion. As little as 6 ml (a little over a teaspoon) of the oil taken by mouth can be fatal.

When is a poison not a poison?

“What is there that is not poison? All things are poison and nothing is without poison. Solely the dose determines that a thing is not a poison.”

– Paracelsus (1493-1541).

Wintergreen, or more accurately synthetic methyl salicylate, is ingested in large quantities overall, but mostly very, very small amounts at a time. It’s a favourite flavouring for toothpaste, chewing gum, sweets and soft drinks, particularly in the USA. It’s one of the flavouring ingredients in Coca-Cola.

Medicinal Uses

Wintergreen oil is present at 3.7% in Olbas Oil, an “Inhalant decongestant” and topical muscle rub.

Methyl salicylate is chemically similar to aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid). 1 ml (20 drops) of oil of wintergreen is equivalent to about 1860 mg of aspirin, or almost six regular-strength adult aspirin tablets. Wintergreen is normally used in muscle rubs and liniments. It is one of the ingredients in the version of Surgical Spirits sold in the US. In most over-the-counter muscle rub creams the content of methyl salicylate is around 30%. In some it can be as high as 70%.

While topical muscle rubs containing Wintergreen are generally safe, the dosage is critical. The Naturopathic Doctor News & Review notes “In 2007, a 17-year-old cross-country runner died from excessive and long-term applications of topical muscle creams for pain relief. The medical examiner determined that an abnormally elevated level of methyl salicylate in her body was the cause of death.”

Perfume use

During the afternoon of 29 May 1969 a naked woman carried a cross across the floor of the Copenhagen Stock Exchange. The action was designed to illustrate the story of Christ driving the merchants out of the temple. It was staged by Bjørn Nørgaard and performed by Lene Adler Petersen. The photograph is a modern icon (which I can’t include here because of copyright issues, but you can see on Bjørn Nørgaard’s website). The action became known as The Female Christ.

While interesting in its own right, The Female Christ became relevant to a discussion of Wintergreen when a perfume company called 19-69 launched a new fragrance earlier this year (2020). They called it Female Christ. It is one of very few perfumes I could identify that includes Wintergreen. Fragrantica only lists two. I picked the one described as “unisex”. This is what Fragrantica says about Female Christ:

“Female Christ by 19-69 is a Woody fragrance for women and men. This is a new fragrance. Female Christ was launched in 2020. Top notes are Patchouli, Eucalyptus and Pimento; middle notes are Rhubarb, Red Thyme, Geranium and Wintergreen; base notes are Benzoin, Amber, Cashmere Wood, Vanilla and Cinnamon.”

It’s an intriguing fragrance, but my non-professional nose is challenged to detect the Wintergreen. I do plan to attempt using Wintergreen in a fragrance at some point. I won’t be attempting to emulate The Female Christ.

November 12, 2020

Blackthorn’s Botanical Brews

I’ve considered adding book reviews to Stir the Cauldron for a while. Reading Blackthorn’s Botanical Brews by Amy Blackthorn gave me the nudge I needed. After the credits and the contents pages, the Introduction begins:

“People have been fascinated by the idea of bubbling cauldrons full of magic brews since that old time immemorial.”

Overview

Blackthorn’s Botanical Brews is a recipe book with an emphasis on things to drink. Most of the recipes are for cocktails and their mocktail (Sober Alternative) versions. There are chapters on the tools of mixology, and ingredients. There are chapters on making cocktail ingredients from scratch. Amy discusses and describes making tea brews, kombucha and old-fashioned ginger beer. There’s a chapter on love potions (Love Potion, Chapter 9). It’s all interspersed with anecdotes and folklore, and it’s a delight to read.

I first encountered Amy Blackthorn’s work when I bought a copy of Blackthorn’s Botanical Magic. Botanical Magic is one of my reference books for the properties and practical uses of essential oils. But Amy doesn’t limit her descriptions to the physical and therapeutic properties of the oils. She explores the folklore associated with them, and their uses in sympathetic and ritual magic. Botanical Brews takes a similar approach. On one level it’s a “how to mix a drink” recipe book. At the same time it’s a book that offers ways of imbuing a simple drink with magic to turn it into a potion.

Botanical Brews begins with a couple of short chapters that describe the principles of using magic in a kitchen or bar. There is a further chapter on the tools of mixology – bar tools and glassware. The first recipes appear with the descriptions of different styles drinking vessel.

Ingredients

The largest part of the book is devoted to ingredients and recipes, beginning with spirit bases used for cocktails. These are three ways the ingredient descriptions engaged me:

The flavour of the Absinthe that I’ve tried didn’t inspire me. When I’d read this section I sought out a bottle of the better quality stuff, as well as the perforated spoon used to prepare a mixture of the spirit with chilled, sweetened water.

In her section about Bourbon, Amy acknowledges that there are whiskys that aren’t spelled with an “e”. As someone part-raised in Scotland I appreciated her explanation:

“The two spellings come from translating Scots Gaelic and Irish languages (remember that the countries with an E in the name will add it to whiskey, IrEland, UnitEd StatEs.)”

For luck:

“Rinse the bottom of your shoes with Vodka so that, wherever you go today, you are blessed by the moon and with good luck. (I have also done this on the wheels of my wheelchair; both work.)”

There are sections on other ingredients, including fruits and made ingredients. Sloes are the fruit of the Blackthorn tree, so there is a section devoted to them. (Sloes are uncommon in the US and the book is mostly written for an American audience.) One of the made ingredients is Oleosaccharum, made by sprinkling fine sugar over citrus peel to produce a highly concentrated citrus addition for drinks and desserts.

Recipes

The recipes span many styles. The ultimate Bloody Mary is one of many cocktails. (Called the Molotov Cocktail, it includes horseradish, various peppers, and pepper vodka.) A Sober Alternative accompanies each spirited cocktail. (“Having a parent who is an alcoholic, it was important for me to provide Sober Substitutions.”) I was intrigued by some of the non-alcoholic recipes for vinegar-based Switchels and Shrubs. There is a recipe for creating a Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast (SCOBY) as the mother for brewing kombucha. Amy has a company called Hoodoo Blends that produces herbal teas, so yes, there are recipes for teas. There are a few deserts, and some meat marinades. There’s even a recipe for a skin toner.

Overall

This is a kind book. It contains frequent encouragement and tips for the reader to practice self-care. There are anecdotes and stories to make a reader smile, alongside some cautionary tales derived from learning lessons along the way.

Having started with a quote from the Introduction, it seems fitting to end with a quote from the closing paragraphs:

“Being alive is magical. Birth, life, and death are each their own magic and mystery. If I can empower one person, show one person that the things we do in our daily lives can bring magic and meaning to an otherwise bleak world, I’ve done a good job.”

I’m in no doubt that Amy Blackthorn has done a good job many, many times.

November 7, 2020

Smelly Candles

I make candles for my own use, and as gifts. I make them with a blend of soy wax and beeswax. As I deliver gifts of candles there is an exchange that often plays out along the lines:

“I’ve brought you some home-made candles.”
“Oooh! Lovely! Are they scented?”

There’s the look that accompanies the answer “No”. The disappointed look that says:

“Oh. You’re giving me ordinary candles.”

I’ve finally capitulated. I’m starting to venture into making scented candles. But there are some good reasons why I’ve avoided scented candles for so long.

In October 2019 The Metro joined other voices that have questioned whether scented candles were damaging to health. It attributed most of the dangers to the use of paraffin wax in candles, scented or otherwise. It noted that (then) Environmental Secretary Michael Gove “said that candle manufacturers will be told to reduce emissions in their scented candles”. I’m not aware that any such directive has been issued. ( . . . the slimy Gove did gyre and gimble . . .)

I have a deep dislike of many petrochemicals. It’s not so much a moral objection as a physical one. The fumes on the forecourt make my skin prickle when I fill up my car. Paraffin wax candles affect my breathing. Commercially produced scented candles tend to be made with “fragrance oils”, even if the candlewax is vegetable based. So if a visit to a Yankee Candle store brings you joy I’m very happy for you. But please don’t expect me to accompany you. Or to any of many candle shops in malls and High Streets.

Artificial Fragrances

The first artificial fragrances were developed in chemistry laboratories in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Guerlan’s Jicky, launched in 1889, is generally regarded as the first “synthetic” perfume because of the proportion of synthetic fragrances it contains. Some earlier perfumes contained small proportions of synthetic fragrance.

Synthetic fragrances have a lot of advantages for anyone making perfume or scented candles. They are consistent, when natural fragrances can vary enormously in quality and potency. Perhaps most significantly, artificial fragrances are much cheaper than natural ones. The range of synthetic scents is also much wider. Many flower scents are destroyed by heat or solvents so they cannot be extracted from their natural sources, but artificial versions can be formulated. So Yankee Candles can offer fragrances with enticing names like “Mulberry and Fig Delight” or “Passion Fruit Martini”. Sadly these, and all their other offerings, just get right up my nose.

Adding things to candles

My first attempts to make scented candles were based on adding solid material. Many commercial scented candles have pieces of “stuff” embedded in the surface of the wax. I considered adding herbs, flowers, grated spices such as nutmeg or tonka beans, or resins such as frankincense or myrrh. I concluded that such additions could be decorative, but added nothing in terms of fragrance. Myrrh resin just sank:

That’s the problem with solid additions. They sink into the wax as the candle burns, and they don’t release enough fragrance to be significant. Solid additions can float on the surface of the molten wax and begin to burn as extra candle wicks. In the case of a resin such as myrrh or frankincense, the resin sinks to the bottom of the container until the level of the molten wax falls below the resin. Then the combination of wax and resin catches fire, and burns with an intensely hot flame. It’s a formula for turning something incandescent into something incendiary:

Oops! Not a recommended way to play with fire.

Anything embedded in the surface of a scented candle is most likely just decorative, but still potentially a fire risk. Some decorations may be made of wax which should burn safely.

Essential Oils in Candles

I’d suspected I would need to use essential oils to produce naturally scented candles. I’d suspected that I’d need to use quite a lot of essential oil to produce naturally scented candles. Until now I mostly bought essential oils in quantities of about 10 ml, and I used them in quantities measured in drops. (There are about 20 drops in 1 ml of oil.)

My second attempt to make a candle scented with myrrh included two 10 ml bottles of esssential oil in the wax to make four 100 g candles. That made candles comprising 5% essential oil.

The first scented candles that I made with myrrh essential oil seem successful, but the scent was not as strong as I would like it to be.

Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh

Since my first scented candles were made with myrrh, it seemed appropriate to make candles with frankincense and “gold”. (I’ve often wondered what happened to the gold, frankincense and myrrh delivered by the Three Wise Men. But I digress . . . ).

For my second attempt at making scented candles I increased the proportion of essential oil to 7½%. That produced a frankincense version to go with the myrrh candles.

Gold presented a different challenge. While some people may claim to be able to smell gold, it isn’t a recognisable scent. My version added a little candle dye and gold-coloured mica to the candle wax, and enough of my Yule blend of oils to make up 7½% of the candle weight.

And the containers for these candles? They come from Aldi. There’s a free fruit yoghurt with every one.

October 26, 2020November 5, 2020

Celebrating with Bonfires

It’s a year since I launched Stir the Cauldron. My plan for the first year was to publish recipes and musings that reflected the changing seasons.

I chose to mark the seasons at the times of pagan festivals. This gave me eight points in the year to inspire recipes rather than just four seasons. It also got round the disagreements about when seasons start and end – for some the Summer Solstice is mid-Summer. For others the Solstice is the start of Summer. You can never please everyone.

Samhain

We’ve arrived at Samhain (pronounced Sow-in). It’s an appropriate time to complete the cycle.

Samhain is best known for Halloween celebrations; pumpkins, fancy dress and sugary confections. Halloween is popularly a time for ghost stories and scary movies. It has been reported that US residents spend more money on Halloween celebrations than they spend at Christmas.

They say that “the veil between this world and the spirit world grows thin” at Samhain. It might be more accurate to say that path between this world and the spirit world gets most use at this time of year. Samhain is a time of death.

Samhain is the last of three harvest festivals during the year. When people farmed at subsistence levels, they slaughtered the animals that they would not be able to feed during the winter, keeping only the pregnant females. Meat was salted, smoked or dried to preserve it for the winter. Once this gruesome chore was complete, as the days became shorter and colder, there was time to remember relatives and friends who had died in the past year and in the years before.

Celebrating with Bonfires

I associate this time of year with the smell of smoke. Gardeners tidy up their gardens after the summer, and farmers trim their hedges. Prunings and trimmings are burnt on bonfires. The evenings become darker and colder, and the smell of woodsmoke starts to drift from chimneys. As a child I remember fields of burning stubble after the grain harvests (and helping the fire to jump from one row to the next, whether the famer wanted it helped or not).

When it came to constructing a fragrance that would celebrate Samhain, I looked for ways of incorporating smoke. I don’t know of many really smoky commercial perfumes, but Tea for Two by L’Artisan Perfumeur is possibly my favourite of all perfumes. It captures the smell of China tea – Lapsang Suchong that I’ve always called “Smoky Bacon Tea”. Tea for Two is rather more subtle than the smell of a bacon sandwich, not that I have anything against bacon sandwiches.

At first I couldn’t find a natural fragrance that was evocative of woodsmoke. I considered a heavily peated malt whisky such as Octomore by Bruichladdich. Whisky turned out to be less than ideal as an ingredient for a fragrance, but only a few drops were sacrificed to the experiment. The remainder of the bottle enhanced evenings of conversation.

Capturing the smoke

I eventually found two smoky essential oils:

Choya Nakh is produced in India. It is made by “the destructive distillation of sea-shells” in an earthenware vessel called a choya.

Birch Tar Essential Oil is produced by heating birch bark in a closed metal container. The process is similar to that used to make charcoal. A dark and sticky tar condenses on the inside of the container. The tar can be cleaned and purified by steam distillation to produce a viscous essential oil. It’s difficult to handle because it’s so sticky. It’s also corrosive and will eat into the surface of plastics. However, the rich, smoky smell more than compensates for the struggle to incorporate it into a blend.

My blend of oils to capture the scent of of the season is Samhain.

October 3, 2020October 9, 2020

Makes Me Stronger…

Funny how the Nietzsche quotes come out when things go wrong. Perhaps he knew a thing or two.

On Thursday 17 September, Stir the Cauldron crashed. I asked my website hosting company to help restore it. They responded the following Tuesday. In the meantime I had picked up the pieces of The Cauldron from a server in County Durham in the UK and found them a new home on servers in Utah in the US. The process of transferring the domain name and reconstructing the site took another two weeks. The post I had planned in celebration of the Autumn Equinox languished as the Equinox passed. But Stir the Cauldron is back, better, stronger.

The Autumn Equinox is a special time for me. It’s the time when harvest is celebrated. It’s when the nights start to be longer than the days. It’s our wedding anniversary.

The Autumn Equinox is the second of three harvest festivals each year. Where Lammas celebrated the start of the harvest, the Autumn Equinox celebrates the harvest coming to an end. My offering to this celebration is to mix up wheatgerm oil, raspberry seed oil, rosehip seed oil and cognac essential oil into Mabon Lotion.

I burn a candle for a few minutes as part of a daily meditation ritual. As the days get shorter we start to burn candles in the evenings. I started pouring my own candles a few years ago, but resisted any attempt to create scented candles. But never say never; of all years, this was the year to experiment. I’ve tried adding fragrance to candles and tried to make candles for specific purposes. It’s still a work-in-progress. I’ll share successes and failures soon.

August 30, 2020November 5, 2020

G is for: Glycerine

I had an awareness that glycerine was a useful ingredient before I started to research this post. Then I discovered a range of applications that was far wider than I suspected. In the process of researching glycerine I turned up a couple of useful, and fascinating, resources. I learned from one of them that the Glycerine Producers’ Association in the US had identified 1,583 different uses for glycerine by 1949.

I’ll explore some of the wider uses of glycerine later , and in a couple of sidebars. But to begin I’ll give a description of it and relate its properties to cosmetic and culinary uses.

Glycerine is a clear liquid, almost colourless, odourless, viscous, and denser than water. It has a specific gravity of approximately 1.25. It is hygroscopic (attracts water) and for all effective purposes it is not toxic to human health or the environment. These two properties, its affinity for water and its absence of toxic effects on human physiology, make glycerine such a useful cosmetic ingredient.

There are other chemicals that share some of the properties of glycerine, but which are not so benign. Here’s a sidebar about one of them.

Cosmetic uses

In cosmetics and culinary applications, glycerine is described as “humectant”. It traps moisture and prevents drying. It is added to cake icings (frostings) to prevent them drying out and becoming hard and brittle. The same property is used when glycerine is used as a skin moisturiser. Glycerine is absorbed in the surface of skin and it is remarkably persistent, remaining detectable for days rather than hours. It draws in and holds moisture. It should always be mixed with a little water before it is applied to skin, otherwise it will dry it out rather then moisturising it.

I use glycerine in intensive hand cremes, including Heavy Duty Hand Creme and Rescue Hand Creme. It also appears in the recipe for Lammas Lotion and Pumpable Body Lotion. It is the wetting agent in #53 Insanitizer – a hand sanitizer based on the World Health Organization recipe for hand sanitizer.

Glycerine has been used in skin tonics and serums since the early nineteenth century. William B Dick’s Encyclopaedia of Practical Receipts and Processes, published by Dick and Fitzgerald in New York and appearing in their 1866 catalogue, contains three recipes for glycerine and rose water tonics. The recipes only vary in the proportion of glycerine to rose water. I have recipes for both a tonic and a more intensive serum.

The history of Glycerine

My source for much of the history of glycerine was documents published on the website of the American Cleaning Institute. Although it isn’t well signposted, at the bottom of the ACI homepage there is a link to “SCIENCE”. The archives contain peer reviewed papers, many of which are scanned historical documents that won’t normally turn up in a web search.

The history of glycerine begins with its discovery in 1779 by K W Scheerle, a swedish chemist . Scheerle’s method produced glycerine as a by-product of making soap. The empirical formula for glycerine, C₃H₈O₃, was determined by a French chemist Pelouse in 1836. The structural formula, C₃H₅(0H)₃, was not established until 1883, by Berthelot and Lucea.

Glycerine in Soap

Glycerine is still produced as a by-product of soap-making. A lower grade of glycerine is also produced in greater quantities as a by-product of biodiesel.

Although glycerine is normally removed from soap, it can be left in the finished product or added at a later stage in processing. Pears soap was first produced in a factory close to Oxford Street in London in 1807. Pears soap gets its characteristic transparency from the glycerine remaining in the soap, and from the use of alcohol (methanol) in the production process.

The addition of glycerine, alcohol and sugar to a soap base can produce an almost perfectly transparent soap.

Funding Nobel Prizes

Not all applications of glycerine are as gentle as Pears soap.

Even before the structural formula of glycerine was known, glycerine had been chemically converted into trinitroglycerine. Trinitroglycerine is both highly explosive and highly unstable. Its tendency to explode spontaneously rendered it useless as a practical explosive until Alfred Nobel invented a way of stabilising it in 1866. Nobel called his invention dynamite. With the invention of dynamite, glycerine became both economically and industrially significant.

Here’s a sidebar on nitroglycerine.

August 17, 2020November 9, 2020

Frog’s Breath

(Insect Repellent)

One of the consequences of making cosmetics and perfumes at home is that you start to acquire a collection of bottles. You never throw out a bottle that might be useful, or decorative. There is a reason for you to rummage through charity shops and flea markets. You struggle to find storage space for an ever expanding selection of oil bottles, lab reagent bottles, coloured bottles, decorated bottles, poison bottles, perfume bottles, hand-blown bottles, and bottles with no discernible purpose.

My collection contained one quite plain bottle with a label proclaiming that the content was Frog’s Breath.

It occurred to me that Frog’s Breath would be a most appropriate name for an insect repellent. For the grammar nerds, the reasoning includes subjunctive and conditional verbs:

If a fly were to feel the breath of a frog it would want to depart in haste.

I really dislike using DEET based insect repellents. The smell is something I really dislike, and it makes me sneeze. I can’t enjoy eating out of doors in the presence of the smell of DEET. I’ve found Frog’s Breath is as effective as DEET, and I can tailor the smell of Frog’s Breath to be reasonably pleasant. I’ve successfully used Frog’s Breath to deter mosquitos, ticks, and the sand flies that are too small to see but which cause misery by attacking feet and ankles.

Making Frog’s Breath

I don’t really have a specific recipe for my Frog’s Breath. It has just two ingredients:

Isopropyl Alcohol (70% by volume with water)
A selection of essential oils.

Most airlines will allow you to carry small quantities of liquids containing up to 70% alcohol in cabin and hold luggage. Higher concentrations have a lower flash point, meaning they catch fire more easily, and airlines may refuse to carry them.

I aim for the essential oil content to be about 5%, so 5 ml of essential oils to 95 ml of alcohol. Approximately 100 drops of oil is 5 ml.

Choosing Essential Oils

The choice of essential oils can be almost arbitrary, but here are a few considerations:

The mixture will be sprayed directly onto skin. If you are aware that your skin is sensitive to any oil, avoid adding it to your insect repellent.

I don’t know of any essential oil that attracts insects. Most are effective repellents.

Phototoxicity

Some essential oils are phototoxic. In very simple terms that means that they have the direct opposite effect to sunscreen – they decrease the amount of time you can safely spend in the sun when applied to your skin. The effect is minimal at low concentrations. I’ve used small quantities of some of the potentially phototoxic oils listed below, but I’d advise you to avoid them if you have very fair or sensitive skin:

Angelica root
Bergamot
Cassia
Cumin
Ginger
Lemon
Lime
Lovage
Mandarin
Orange
Verbena.

Making Frog’s Breath is an opportunity to use up the last few drops of oil in a bottle, or to turnover stocks of oils that may be starting to deteriorate. Here’s a list of the oils used in one batch of Frog’s Breath:

Oils that are Head Notes in perfumery are less persistent. Try to include Heart Notes and Base Notes so that your insect repellent is effective for longer and you don’t need to re-apply it so frequently.

Patchouli is an effective insect repellent, a Base Note, and manages to harmonise the most unlikely mixtures of essential oils into something that smells better than an unplanned hodge-podge. It’s also one of the less expensive essential oils. I aim to include 30% to 50% patchouli in the oils in my Frog’s Breath.

I have a small bottle of isopropyl alcohol that I use to rinse droppers and pipettes that I’ve used for essential oils. When the alcohol starts to get a bit murky and droplets of oil collect on the surface, I replace the alcohol in the bottle and keep the used alcohol for making insect repellent.

It’s very likely that some of the oils will settle on the surface of the alcohol, especially if you include heavier Base Notes like patchouli. This isn’t a problem because you can disperse the oils through the alcohol by shaking the bottle before use.

Using Frog’s Breath

I decant my insect repellent into 50 ml bottles for use. I put a screw top on the bottles for travelling, and carry a spray top to use when I get to my destination.

To use Frog’s Breath, first shake the bottle to disperse the oils in the alcohol. Avoid getting it in your eyes while spraying it onto your skin or in your hair. It should be okay to spray it onto clothing, particularly natural fibres. Some technical fabrics may show traces of oils, so probably best to avoid spraying them unless you can test where an oil stain won’t show.

August 11, 2020November 9, 2020

L is for: Lavender

Lavender has made an appearance with me several times in the last month.

Even if you think you know nothing of herbalism, you probably know that people use sachets of dried lavender flowers to discourage moths from damaging woollen and linen fabrics. If you think you know nothing of aromatherapy, you probably still know that the smell of lavender helps people to relax and sleep.

Cultivation

There are 47 registered species of lavandula, for which the common name is lavender. Lavandula is a member of the mint family of plants. Lavender has cosmetic, medicinal and culinary uses. It was prized by the ancient Greeks and the Romans. The name Lavender is derived from the Latin verb lavare, to wash. English Lavender has a sweeter flavour for culinary use. Dutch Lavender yields an oil which is richer in a family of chemicals called terpenes, which include camphor. Dutch lavender has a more bitter taste, but is more effective in deterring moths. Most lavender species have uses in perfumery.

Lavender is grown commercially, mostly for the production of lavender essential oil. It is native to India, the Middle East, to many Mediterranean and North African countries, to Europe and the Canary Islands. Bulgaria is the largest commercial producer. Provence in France is well-known for its lavender fields. There are English lavender farms in the Cotswolds and around London.

Lavender oils and salves

My first engagement with lavender this year was prompted by the plight of Millie. Millie is a horse. Her face had been savaged by flies, especially around her mouth and eyes. P asked me if I could produce a salve that would soothe the bites and discourage further insect bites. The result was lavender infused olive oil, lavender salve, and lavender & patchouli salve.

I acquired a package of 500g of dried lavender flowers from Provence to make lavender oil and Millie’s salves. The recipes used 100g, leaving me with plenty for other experiments.

Lavender Ice Cream

My second encounter with lavender was at Cotswold Lavender, at Snowshill in Worcestershire.

Cotswold Lavender
Chee Hoong Loh/Shutterstock

The lavender fields are picturesque in June and July, so much so that they are a favourite venue for photography. When they are open to the public, they quickly fill with groups smiling at phones and cameras. I visited with parents who have taken annual photographs of their child in the lavender fields. The child, now three years old, was not in a mood to co-operate this year. I went to the gift shop in search of ice cream to bribe the child and sooth frustrated adults.

I bought a selection of ice-cream flavours and offered them around. The lavender flavour remained un-chosen, left for me. Given the setting, I thought lavender ice cream would be a good choice. It seems the rest of the party knew better, and I found it bland and disappointing. I challenged myself to do better. The result of my challenge is my version of a recipe for lavender ice cream.

I certainly plan to repeat the ice cream, and I’ll make some more lavender infused oil. I’ll still have about half of the dried flowers left, so I’m looking for other uses. I’m considering a lavender syrup, a lavender cordial (perhaps with some hedgerow fruit) and lavender lip-balm.

When my still is up and running I may prepare lavender toilet waters, but that’s for another time.

July 29, 2020November 9, 2020

Sloe Gin

It’s nearing the end of July, and already there are ripening sloes in the hedgerows. It’s time to decant the sloe gin I made last year so I can re-use the bottles. Last year’s makings have a deep ruby colour.

Sloes are the fruit of the blackthorn bush prunus spinosa. They are small, a blue shade of purple when ripe, often with a white bloom on the surface. They are very bitter to taste, and that’s why the only common use for them is making sloe gin.

Ripe sloes on a blackthorn bush
Awe Inspiring Images/Shutterstock

Making sloe gin is not difficult. While many recipes suggest you can make it in the Autumn and it will be ready to drink by the end of December, I prefer to leave mine to macerate for just under a year. This year I will drink the sloe gin I made last year, and perhaps some will find its way as presents to a favoured few. Last year I struggled to find the sloes to make a modest quantity of sloe gin, so any recipients this year will be very favoured!

My recipe is very easy to remember:

A pound of sugar, to
A pound of sloes, to
A (20 ounce UK) pint of gin.

If you are making your sloe gin in 750 ml or 700 ml bottles, that scales down for each bottle to:

200 g of sugar, to
200 g of sloes, to
250 ml of gin.

Tradition has it that the sloes are best picked after the first frost. It is also traditional to prepare the sloes by pricking each one six times with a needle. I feel no need to follow these traditions. There are easier ways of doing things.

I pick the sloes when the flesh gives slightly when they are squeezed. You could taste one, but they are seriously bitter, even when fully ripe.

I offer three ways to prepare the fruit so the skins are broken and the sugar and gin can penetrate.:

One. Take each individual sloe and prick it with a needle (for the traditionalists).

Two. Lay the sloes out on a tray and hit them with a clean wire brush (the sort used for cleaning barbecque grills). Theraputic.

Three. Freeze the sloes, thereby simulating the first frost and splitting their skin so the sugar and gin can penetrate.

After that, the preparation is very easy. Put measured quantities of sloes, sugar and gin into glass bottles, leaving a small airspace so you can shake the bottles and agitate the contents.

Sloes plus sugar plus gin after first shaking.

Store the bottles away from direct sunlight, but not so well hidden that you forget to shake them about once a week for the first couple of months.

Give them the occasional shake until you are ready to harvest sloes the following year. Then strain the liquid from the fruit:

I know of people who remove the stones from the fruit and use it as you might use dried fruit in cereal or a pudding. I compost the remains because I find the task of removing the stones rather fussy, and I’m not sufficiently enthusiastic about eating the soused fruit remains.

After letting any sediment settle out, decant the liquid into bottles:

The blackthorn bushes are laden with much more fruit than last year, and the fruit is almost ripe. It seems the hedgerows contain more fruit of many types this year. I’m hoping for a bumper crop, for me and for the wildlife that depends upon the hedgerows.

July 22, 2020November 9, 2020

Lughnasadh

The fields of grain are ripening to gold. The weather forecasts have alternate days of rain and sunshine. I haven’t seen a combine harvester in the fields this year, but I expect them any day now.

Lughnasadh, or Lammas is the first of the annual harvest festivals. It falls on 01 August in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s the celebration of the grain harvest.

From Yule to Litha, the winter solstice to the summer solstice, I’ve produced cosmetic creams with fragrances. The creams all have the same base (#14) and are combined with blends of essential oils. For Lughnasadh I’ve abandoned the base + fragrance formula. Taking the shorter of the alternate names (to fit on a label), Lammas Lotion relies on its ingredients for its fragrance. The fragrance comes from oats and wheatgerm oil, with just a hint of vanilla to add sweetness.

Lammas Lotion is lighter than the cold creams (#14, #21, #22). More than half the total ingredients are water based, so it cannot rely on beeswax alone as the emulsifier.

Another consequence of the higher water content is that this cream is more prone to fungal and bacterial contamination than a cold cream. There are no essential oils, which are natural preservatives. Instead, the Lammas Lotion recipe is dosed with a natural preservative (Naticide). It has a slight vanilla and almond scent, so works well with the smells of grain and vanilla. Naticide is described as “made from essential oil compounds”. I would read that as being a chemically modified natural product.

When I use very small quantities of ingredients, say 1-5 ml, I use a syringe to measure them out. The syringes have blunt needles. They are sold for refilling inkjet printer cartridges.