Boswellia Sacra Infused Organic Apple Cider Vinegar

One of the summer projects at The Scented Djinn was to create an effective toner using apple cider vinegar. I began with store-bought raw organic apple cider vinegar and a handful of boswellia sacra resin and allowed it to 'ferment' for a month. The results were nice. I used it sporadically before deciding I wanted something original, something that I'd created from scratch. I had already embarked upon a path of creating my own kombucha with great success, and it was a friend who inadvertently suggested I make my own apple cider vinegar too when she mentioned that she wasn't able to drink her homemade kombucha due to health reasons, but used it often as a skin cleanser. Now there's an idea! And there is kombucha cleanser coming to the shop soon as well. Back to the cider vinegar -- I did a fair bit of research on methods for creating homemade apple cider vinegar and realized about five minutes into the research that it was going to be incredibly easy. Making good organic apple cider vinegar follows the same standards for making good anything -- cleanliness, exceptional raw materials, and patience. I started with a gallon-and-a-half of filtered spring water, and a 5-lb bag of organic gala apples, an investment of roughly $5 USD. The apples were washed in apple cider vinegar, as were the tools and container used to create the new apple cider vinegar. The apples were cut into quarters, with seeds and skin intact, dumped into the cleaned glass container, and then the water was poured over the top. Some recipes I had found suggested using a ceramic plate to hold the apples down under the water, while others suggested nothing, to simply allow the apples to float freely. I then covered the container with cheesecloth and tied it down with cotton twine, set it in a dark closet (the HP closet on a shelf), and forgot about it for a month. By then, it was absolutely vinegar, though unlike any apple cider vinegar I had ever smelled as it still had a LOT of apple scent to it, which was surprising. I then filtered the new vinegar into another clean glass container and added a few cups of boswellia sacra resin, and let that stew for another month. The results were the lovely amber bottles of infused Viniagres, which quickly sold out. I'm on the second batch -- a larger batch -- of frankincense/apple cider vinegar and the results are turning out even better than the first batch because the frankincense I'm using is better than the stuff used in the first batch. This is a fresh batch of frankincense/apple cider vinegar which will be ready in about two more weeks.

Also on this shelf is a big batch of homemade health cider, formerly known as 'fire cider', but we're not allowed to call it that anymore because of . . . well, it doesn't matter why. Just another case of people being asshats. Oh, and the health cider was made using my own homemade organic apple cider vinegar. So there's health cider, an infused apple cider vinegar, the apple cider vinegar mother, and a big batch of kombucha, as yet unflavored. All of these projects require patience, a substance most of you know I possess in short supply.