Ye Olde Apothecary

I've started up the tincturing again. I now have new tinctures of ambrette seeds, ooey, gooey beeswax (including the cappings, royal jelly, dribbles of honey and hairy bee parts), and tonka beans.

I saved a single tonka bean to toss into a perfume, just to see what it would do. Still waiting on that.

All this tincturing reminds me of when I used to make vanilla cordials as gifts for Yule. I'd buy a couple of gallons of medium grade brandy or bourbon and load them with sugar and vanilla beans and let them stew in the pantry for 3 or 4 months. Decanting was fun. I'd buy beautiful flip cork bottles and paste old fashioned labels on them, then wrap them in shredded brown paper, then stuff them in cardboard wine gift boxes with lots of curly ribbon. The vanilla cordials were always very well received. The oddest thing is, I never saved any for myself.

Yesterday I received a small order of oils from White Lotus Aromatics. Have I told you how much I love White Lotus Aromatics? Just love 'em. I wanted to wax poetical over their frankincense oils ~ here I go:

Frankincense, Boswellia serrata, India ~ sweet, anisey, delicious, edible, sensuous. Pairing it with the merest hint of spices -- perhaps 1% dilute of clove or cassia -- cardamom, galangal, would bring out that soft anisette.

Frankincense, Boswellia carteri, Somalia ~ incensuous (ha!), resiny, spiritual, catechism (which brings a whole host of strange images to my mind about priests and cologne hovering in the folds of sacred robes and celibacy and lovers lost to God). All in all, Boswellia carteri is my favorite frankincense.

Frankincense, Boswellia sacra, Oman ~ spicy, peppery, hot, wind-swept red desert, dry lake beds and long, lonely journeys; warm, sweet anise tea with bits of gritty sand tumbling across parched tongues. This is a sad frankincense, yet it lives.

I also got cumin eo, which still reminds me of pit funk, tonka bean absolute and *choke* rosewood. Oh, I know. I promised myself ages ago I'd stop buying rosewood. I subbed ho wood with rosewood, or tried to, anyway, and it hasn't worked out for me. I will use my rosewood sparingly, and with great guilt, then I'll never buy it again. At least it isn't civet I'm addicted to.

Rose geranium and fresh ginger complete the small order from White Lotus Aromatics. The fresh ginger ~ ah! Beautiful. And, of course, so is the rose geranium. Top drawer aromatics.