Medicine Making 101: Making Effective Herbal Products with Mary Blue

Hello, everyone, and welcome to this session of the Virtual Herbalism Conference. I'm your host, Lindsey Feldpausch, and I'm so pleased to be welcoming Mary Blue. Mary is a community herbalist, organic farmer, and founder of Farmacy Herbs. She has spent more than two decades teaching, practicing, and expanding access to herbal medicine. Her approach is rooted in using herbs, nutrition, and lifestyle to support health, while centering community activism and social and health justice as the core of her work. Since 2006, Mary has run her Farmacy Herbs Training program. She's taught everywhere, from hospitals to high schools to international conferences, including being a teacher at Brown University's Medical School's integrative resident program, teaching Western herbalism. Today, we'll be discussing a topic that is fully entwined throughout her work, Medicine Making 101: Making Effective Herbal Products. Mary brings a combination of in-depth experience in the fields of medicine making, clinical practice, herb cultivation, alongside her decades of teaching. We are in very good hands for this conversation. Mary, thank you so much for being here with us today.

Hi, Lindsey. Thank you so much for having me. This is certainly going to be a really potent topic for our listeners, Mary. Let's go ahead and just start off by hearing a bit of your story. When medicine making as a journey began for you.

Sure. Yeah. So, I grew up in Providence, Rhode Island. And in the late 1900s, I started shifting my life from growing up in a very religious background, a cult, basically, to working as an environmental activist. I was changing my lifestyle so that I wouldn't have a negative effect on the planet. So that meant understanding what I was putting in my body for medicine. I rode my bike everywhere. I was organizing protests and tree sits. I was doing everything I could to protect the planet. And at the time, I was waitressing, and I actually, in high school, did start off selling certain flowers as a career path. So that helped me launch me into herbalism. So, herbs weren't new to me. They definitely affected my life as far as my mental health in high school. So when I was waitressing a few doors down, there was a little herb shop, and I walked in there, and my life changed ever since then. I haven't looked back. So that was in '98, '99. And I signed up for an Introduction to Herbalism class and tried to make my first infused oil. And it was just like a royal fail. It didn't work. I didn't understand any of the concepts of medicine making. But I just kept going. I had this blind confidence about herbal medicine. I don't know where it came from, whether it's in my DNA or what, but I was set on herbalism and understanding that herbs could change our communities, could change our health. Back in those days, there was no internet, no social media, no podcast, no online herb schools, nothing. If you wanted to learn, it was hands-on learning. You tried things out yourself, or you found an in-person teacher. That's how it all began through environmental activism, really.

Let's dive into the medicine making component. What do you feel is foundational knowledge that herbalists need from the start when they are looking to dive into creating their own herbal products?

I think the core value that all herbalists share is that we want to help people. We want to make really good medicine to help people. We want to help the planet. From my personal experience in the herbal community and my personal values, I wanted to help people. So that was the big thing for me is making medicine that helps people. In my early days, I didn't have the training or the access to resources to really understand how to make really effective medicine that works. Nowadays, we know we see herbal medicine in Walgreens or Walmart. That's just like dead medicine. It doesn't work. It doesn't have any constituents in it. That core value of helping people really helped me discover and study and really change my medicine making is the concept of solvency. That means using the right solvent to extract those constituents so we can help people.

It's interesting to me because medicine making is absolutely one of my passions as an herbalist, and I feel like there's so much science behind the practice. But then there's also this idea that folk medicine has great efficacy as well. But the difference between folk herbalism and medicine making that can be reproducible on a larger scale and the idea of solvency extracting the most out of the herbs is this science side. Let's define some of the terminology for our audience. What does solvency mean to you and how does that play into the menstruums that we utilize? Can you discuss how these play together in herbal product creation?

Solvency is the act of dissolving, using a liquid, a menstruum, to dissolve some of the constituents in the plant that are going to improve our health. A menstruum could be water, alcohol, vinegar, vegetable glycerin. Yeah, those are the main menstruums. Basically, we want each individual plant is going to have an affinity for a different menstruum. That menstruum, that liquid, will dissolve the constituents, and once we take them internally, be able to heal our systems. The menstruum, when combined with an herb, will create a solution which can have different names. It can be a tincture, or it can be an infused vinegar, or a glycerite, what have you.

But how do you choose which menstruum you pair with the plant?

Yes, that's what I didn't understand at all when I started learning about herbalism. It was just I just put a liquid, water or alcohol or oil, generally, into a jar with the plant and hoped that—I had faith that something was going to happen. And some of the times something did happen because just because water is the ultimate solvent, it dissolves almost all constituents. Alcohol dissolves things. I did get it right sometimes, but not all the time. Sometimes I just didn't get it right. In my classes, I teach a framework of understanding solvency. That framework involves understanding the basic menstruums. So, understanding water, all of our products that are made with water, teas, infusion, syrups, all of those things. Then understanding alcohol, all of the products that are made with alcohol, tinctures, understanding oils, et cetera, understanding vinegar. So, once you get your basic understanding of your menstruums and their solubility, then you start looking at your basic constituents that are therapeutic, which some are already very familiar to a lot of students. Vitamins and minerals are a constituent that's really therapeutic. We understand that vitamins and minerals are water-soluble. We would pick that menstruum if we wanted a vitamin and mineral. An alkaloid is another really common herbal constituent. If you had a cigarette, had cocaine, had coffee, had magic mushrooms, you've had an alkaloid. Not all alkaloids are addictive or psychoactive, but alkaloids are really common in our society. Those are generally going to be alcohol soluble. So, understanding terpenes or volatile oils. Terpenes are really common nowadays because of cannabis. So terps, these are constituents that are really heat-soluble and are pretty variable as far as their menstruums. So, there are some constituents that you could use or any menstruum with. But there's some constituents that you can only use cold water, only use alcohol, etc. So, it's like in my class, I teach about eight basic constituents just to get to know. I'm not talking about getting to know the chemistry of these constituents, about the polar activity. I don't even know what electron or whatever is connected to it. I'm just talking about understanding how these constituents affect our bodies. Those are the base. That's my framework for understanding which menstruum to use. And it's trial and error. A lot of times, students make mistakes the first time like I did, even if they are introduced to the concepts of solvency and menstruums.

I loved hearing that full circle experience that you had, Mary, in bringing the science and magic into your herbal product creations. Let's talk about tincture making. This is one of the most important things that, as herbalists, we create tinctures to provide to people to support their health. What are your tips for ensuring good extraction in tincture making?

I might have a little controversial view here, but my tincture making process is tops 12 hours, more like 6 hours most of the time. Yeah, not 30 days. I don't shake it every day. I don't do any of that. I'm done in under 12 hours making all of my tinctures, whether it's a root, a leaf, anything. The way I do that is through the double extraction process. I take my water part of my tincture and my alcohol part of my tincture, and I make them separately. My water part, I'm always either infusing for at least 3-4 hours or decocting, simmering for longer periods of time, and making concentrate. I started doing that because in every other water-based extraction, we use heat. Teas, infusions, soups, cooking, we're always using heat to dissolve those constituents. I was like, "Why am I not using heat in my tinctures? Why am I letting my tinctures sit in cold water for a month?" Cold water is good for demulcents for making a mucilage, but I don't want that in a tincture. That stops up my tincture dropper, and I can't even drop it anymore if it's too thick from the demulcent. I said, "Let me just start this." We did double extraction for all of our mushrooms. Every mushroom extraction I've always made, I was like, "Why am I not using double extractions for all my tinctures?" I started experimenting, doing all of my alcohol part and water part separate. I simmer or decoct my water part, and then I take my alcohol part, and I use straight ethanol, and I use it in a Vitamix, and blend the heck out of it and then let it sit for a couple of hours. Then I strain out my mark out of my water part, and I add that water part to my alcohol when it's hot. So that heat starts heating up that alcohol. And I can tell you, I've been making tinctures for 25 years now, and the colors of the extractions that I get from this double extraction method within a few hours are way different, deeper, brighter greens. These reds are like this dark, dark reds I've never even seen making medicine for 25 years. Every time it's funny because I've been doing this method for about five years now, and every time I make a tincture, I'm like, "Oh, my gosh." My staff, I'm like, "Look at this color. You guys, look at this color. Look at this green. Look at this red. Oh, my god." My staff's like, yeah, yeah, they get it. But I'm still mind blown that I can make such a powerful tincture by doing a double extraction method and using heat and blending. I'm always blending my water part. I'm always working to break down the cell walls. I mean, that's what shaking a tincture does every day with your hands. But if you're using a blender or a Vitamix or an immersion blender, you can break down those cell walls. You're using the solvent to dissolve it, but you're also using heat and blending to increase that solubility and increase those constituents being preserved in the alcohol in the water. So yeah, I'm done. It saved me so much space because in my business, we sell like 150 tinctures. I always had to have gallon jars of tinctures sitting, which is a huge amount of space. Our whole production kitchen was gallons and gallons and gallons of jars, plus plant matter sitting in there. Then what happens if you don't sell the tincture? It sits around for two years, and then it expires. You have to throw it away. Now I can make a tincture when I run out, and I can have that tincture ready for a formula the next day. I usually let it sit overnight just for good measure. Then we've strained it out, and it's ready to go. Honestly, I feel a little bit like—I definitely figured this out through some influences about solubility, but I definitely feel like it's a method I wish I had 25 years ago. I get so many more constituents. I can't say enough. Like I said, after seeing it for 25 years, the quality of tinctures I would get versus now with this heating up the water part, it's mind-blowing. It really is. So that's my spiel on how I make my tinctures.

Oh, my gosh, Mary. I have so many thoughts here. As a very deep in the science side of plant extraction, what you're doing, so we have polarity determining solubility. So, we have the menstruums on a polarity scale, and then pairing those with the phytochemistry, the constituent side of how the extract is going to be pulled into solution. But what you're doing with your methodology is you're applying heat, so you're supporting the breaking down of cell walls through that and increasing extraction. You're breaking down the plant material even further through the blending, so you're increasing extraction. You're adding the movement, which also exposes those cell walls and increases extraction. You're increasing extraction in this really beautiful way. Obviously, utilizing then your organoleptic evaluation, the use of your senses, to determine that the outcome is highly potent.

Yeah, exactly. Interestingly enough, my process to get to this place was double boiling of a tincture that was usually 60, 40, 60% alcohol, 40%, I mean, 60% water, 40% alcohol or 50/50, in a double boiler. I would put it outside with a heat pad and heat it. Heating alcohol is dangerous. It can explode. That happens. One day, I was making a tincture, and I spilled the ethanol, and I was heating it. I had the stove on because I was doing the double-boil method. I lit the whole table on fire. My sneakers, all the alcohol dripped everywhere because I spilled it because the Vitamix went boom and the alcohol spilled all over my sneakers. My sneakers were on fire. My shirt was on fire. I had to use the fire extinguisher, which meant that we had to trash everything that was in the kitchen because the fire extinguisher is so toxic. I could have burned my whole production kitchen down. So that's why I was like, I'm not going to do that anymore. Let me do this double extraction. I'm going to start with my water part first before I'm working with the alcohol. I have that going and sitting. Once my heat is off in the room, then I do my alcohol. Because when you work with a substance that's flammable or potentially dangerous so much, I'm making tinctures every week, almost every day, however often a month, you lose this understanding of how dangerous it is when you use it so much, and it's not dangerous. And then that one moment where you're like, "Oh, wait, yeah, that's really flammable. I could have lost everything." That's why I went to this double extraction of like, "Okay, let me just figure this out so it's safe." And that's how I can teach my students, because I don't want to teach my students this method that's not safe.

I definitely think that flames and alcohol are a potentially dangerous combination. I think it's interesting because the blender safely adds that heat component on a very minimal level. Through the movement that occurs in the blender, you will feel the tincture. It's hot. Or the water extract, if you're blending it, it's already probably heated in then. But if you're blending a tincture with alcohol and plant material and you let it go for long enough, there will be a heat component. So, you're getting that heat extraction. I have actually had tinctures that I put into a blender to speed up extraction, just as you're doing. Build up enough gas from the evaporation of the alcohol to blow the lid off the blender. You should have seen the ceiling after that has happened. Yeah, you got to be careful working with alcohol, for sure. Yeah. Absolutely.

Well, I find this is super fascinating to me, Mary, just because it's so unique. This is not a practice that most people are doing, and I'm so glad that you shared it with our listeners. When you are making tinctures, are you utilizing ratios? Obviously, you've mentioned alcohol percentage already, so that is a part of your practice. Do you do this because of the efficacy and the consistency?

Yeah, definitely. When you're selling anything, you want to have a product that's consistent because then customers will come back and be like, "Well, this is a different color." Sometimes it's a different color because the plant is a different color, and you explain that to them. But also, I use ratios because I want to help people. At my core, my value is herbalism to help people. So, I want to have consistent medicine. So again, the ratios were really, really, really hard for me. Public school math trauma, for sure. I shut down with fractions. I always have. And once I had one of my students, Rosanne, come in and really help me, it's interesting because she was my student, she became my teacher. She really helped me understand how to do ratios and fractions. I didn't even know there was a difference between ratios and fractions. You know what I mean? There's actually a difference. So luckily, Rosanne helped me with that. This was years ago. And now I have a framework that I love frameworks, these things that I break up. My brain is highly Virgo-ish. It's like I like organization, I like structure. So she taught me this framework for the ratios. And that's what we teach in my class. And understanding that framework is very helpful. So I would say even if your brain is like mine and doesn't really grasp or didn't have fractions or ratios or didn't have the education that other people had, that you can still learn it. It can be hard, but you can still learn it.

Mary, are you using fresh herbs or dried herbs mostly? Where are you at in the fresh versus dried? Obviously, within herbalism, we have like, our herbs that must be fresh. But some people, you're a cultivator, you do gardening alongside your herbal production. So yeah, I'd be curious to hear more about the fresh and dried herbs that you work with.

Yeah, I love, I use both. I will say that. But I do love using fresh plants, one for that energetic quality of the spiritual aspect of the plant has more energy in it when it just comes out of the soil. But I also like it because the constituents are more viable. It's like thinking about a carrot. You would want to have a fresh carrot versus a dry carrot because those constituents are much more—the longer it dries, the longer you'll lose some of the constituents. But that said, some plant's constituents get stronger when it's dried. So, like ginger, for instance, when it's dried, it's like, Oh, my gosh, it's so much hotter. So, for me, I like using fresh plants because I have control over the soil. I have control over when it's harvested, so I know that the plant is in the right part of its life cycle to be harvested. But that said, sometimes we run out of things and I need to use dried. And I think dried works just as well. It really does. But you just have a bit more vibrancy with the fresh. I think the fresh herbs, having that water content holds some of the water-soluble constituents within them that might degrade when dried over time. But I think freshly dried herbs, sometimes the terpenes, the aromatic qualities or even the phenolics, things can be more concentrated because you've removed that water and they're still found within. But yeah, I love really just exploring. So doing a fresh tincture and doing a dried tincture or freshly dried herb tincture and comparing them and empowering people to be able to use their senses to be like, which feels more potent to you. Because there's no manual right now that has a bunch of plants that say, "Oh, use this one, fresh, choose that one, dry." No one's compiled that. And again, it's going to be based on the soil. Each plant is going to different based on the health of the soil. So, you may get sage from one garden that smells totally different than another garden because of what's in the soil. So that's why I like my garden because I have a little more control over that. But that said, yeah, sometimes dried is the way to go for sure.

Yeah, what's in the soil and the environment in which they are grown. We can compare dandelion leaf that's babied in a cultivated setting versus dandelion leaf out in a lawn somewhere in the stressors it's encountered that have created those bitter constituents versus the sugars. This is such a big part of herb cultivation and plant cultivation in general and what they experience. How do you look for plant quality before you begin to make medicine with herbs?

Yeah, again, so I look at the soil, I look at the color of the plant, the smell of the plant, the organoleptic testing, look at the values of the company if I do have to buy it. Look how long the plant has been around for. It's been around for six months, a year, two years, three years. Those are the kinds of things. Making a tea out of it, and tasting it, and seeing if it still has viability. So yeah, again, using your senses, smelling, tasting, looking for the color of it. So yeah, that's generally what I'm looking for.

We started off our conversation sharing your first experience making infused oils and how there was a struggle there. I'd love to hear a little bit about your journey and relationship with infused oils today. What's your favorite way to make them? What herbs are you working with in this extraction medium?

Yeah, again, might be a little controversial. I don't know. Oils, yeah. I knew when I made that first lavender oil, it was not. I could smell it, I could taste it, and there was nothing to it. I knew even in those early days that I had made a mistake. So, I strained it out and added more lavender, dried lavender, and let it sit another 30 days. And again, nothing happened. The oil just sat in there, literally. So, I've had an interesting journey with infused oils using fresh plants and have them go rancid, heating and blending, and burning oils. And I've come down to understanding that oil is not a great solvent. It's a lipid, it's a fat. In solvency, we think about like deserves like, dissolves like. You can use oil to dissolve other lipids, but you can also melt other constituents into oils by using low heat because you don't want to burn your oils, because it has a low burn temperature. Then using fresh plants, there's a problem because there's all that liquid in it that oil and water don't mix, and you get mold, and it goes rancid. So, infused oils have definitely been a journey for me, and I've ended up on my pre-extraction method, which is a method that Michael Moore taught. He's passed on, but he was an herbal teacher in the Southwest. He taught this pre-extraction method where you take your plants, and you soak them in a little bit of alcohol, very small amount of alcohol. And enough alcohol so that the plant is blended in it so that it doesn't drip. It's just enough to wet it. And that alcohol starts extracting those constituents. And then you take that pre-extraction of the plant and put it in your infused oil and heat it on a low heat for at least four hours with a lid off so that that alcohol can evaporate out. It's a game changer, again, for the colors of my oils, for the stability of my oils. Having a tiny little bit of alcohol in the oil also prevents it from going bad. I try to get rid of most of my—you're not boiling your oil, but try to evaporate off most of the alcohol in it, but it does prevent some fermentation. That's how I do most of my infused oils. I've noticed a big difference in my salves, difference in the color. Again, I'm always like, holy crap, look at this color of this comfrey. It's like the darkest green I've ever seen or the St. John's wort. It's the reddest red you've ever seen. Just from my experience as a medicine maker over the last 25 years, I can see there's a huge difference. That's what I teach with all my infused oils now is the pre-extraction method. And again, I'm done that day. I do not leave plants to sit in oil anymore, especially if they're fresh because the oil will go bad. I want it strained out right away, and it's easier to strain when the oil is a little bit hot because it's more viscous and you can more out of it. So yeah, I think that's—I do focus on herbs that are high in volatile oils. Those herbs that have those scents, those oils, and they're not lipids, it's a different type of oil. They are easily melted in infused oils. So lavender, yarrow, sage. I use sage interchangeably with arnica for bruising. It works so great. Arnica doesn't grow around me. So yeah, I just want to create an oil that's potent and stable. So, the pre-extraction method really helps me do that.

Yeah, I think the alcohol intermediate method can really be highly effective in increasing extraction into oils. The terpenes, those lipid-like constituents that are more lipophilic, they're going to be better extracted in that lipid medium, such as the oils, is a really great way to choose herbs that you want to work with as oil, as a menstruum. When you're working with fresh herbs, Mary, and you're heating, it sounds like with the lid off, so that in that extraction methodology, you are also evaporating off the water. Let's talk a little bit about your fresh herbs in oil infusions and how you reduce potential for microbial growth and, in turn, rancidity with the fresh herbs.

Yeah. Again, the pre-extraction method, it generally works really well for dried herbs because the dried herbs just soak up the alcohol, and you don't have that extra liquid in the plant matter. But when you're using fresh herbs, you could still use that pre-extraction method, and that alcohol really helps with preventing rancidity. That said, I'll even see with the pre-extraction method, so if you're thinking about—a lot of times I see people using, and I use it myself, plantain in a salve. We know plantain, one of its main benefits is its mucilage. It's a demulcent. That thick, goopy mucilage is what's anti-inflammatory to the skin. But that is water-soluble. You can't get that mucilage with oil. I think a lot of people think they're getting the mucilage with the oil, but they're not. But I do see some mucilage from fresh plants when I use the pre-extraction method because there's still a lot of water content in the plantain. And then I get the alcohol and the blending going, and I will get an oil with mucilage in it. So again, that pre-extraction method, I use it for oils. I always use it for glycerin as well. Using the stronger solvents, I can't use water with oil, but using that alcohol to break it down and prevent rancidity.

I'd love to talk a little bit about glycerin. I think that glycerin is really not a super great extraction menstruum because it is so heavily bonded to itself. It's syrupy because it likes being bonded. Just a side note, I use the same method that you do for your tinctures to make glycerites, where I create a water extraction, and then I add the water to glycerin that has been already infused with the herbs and apply heat, and it's done in 4 hours. What do you think of glycerin? Herbs are you working with in that medium, and how do you go about making glycerites?

Yeah, similar. I always use the pre-extraction method, alcohol or water. I don't use a lot of water just because of the potential for it to go rancid in the sugar because sugar and water, you know. Mostly, I'm going to be using—I use alcohol as a pre-extractor. I prefer fresh plants for glycerin 100%, and I'm looking for those plants that glycerin can preserve. I can use the pre-extraction, I can use heating, and I can use blending to break down those constituents that glycerin won't dissolve, but glycerin will preserve it. I think of it more as a preservative, similar to alcohol, where I'm using the heat, I'm using the blending, and I'm using the pre-extraction to break them down, and then the glycerin just preserves it and holds it. That's how I use glycerin. That's great. When working with dried herbs with glycerin, I usually try to keep the glycerin above 55% to maintain shelf stability. If you're working with fresh herbs, I don't do the water component because there's already so much water in that. I'll do the more of a double boiler heat method for the glycerin and fresh herbs.

But let's talk a little bit more about shelf life. How do you determine what the shelf life is of a particular extract, and how do you know when something has gone off?

Yeah, okay. Well, we have dates on everything that we know when we can't sell it anymore. That said, a lot of times, there's still valuable plant matter because they haven't gone bad. Generally, the first thing I look for is the smell or even the sound when you open it and it fizzes. That's a clue that something's fermenting in there. The smell, especially with oils, once you get to know rancid oils, I was in a class one time, and someone was passing around an infused oil for everyone to try. There was a massage therapist sitting next to me, and I took one whiff. I thought, "That's rancid." I passed it to her, and I was like, "What do you think?" She goes, "That's rancid." I'm like, of course, a massage therapist can smell when an oil is rancid, but it's like this—it smells like playdough. It's a very particular—once your nose gets used to it, you'll recognize it right away. Then color, definitely, you'll see some color change. You'll see residue on the outside or the bottom of the bottles. Alcohol generally doesn't go bad. Alcohol will evaporate before it goes bad. But if there's a bunch of water content in it, too, depending on the water content, you could get some fermentation. So yeah, it's that organoleptic smelling, listening. I've had tincture bottles explode on the wall. I'm a winemaker, too. I've had wine pop. We're like, "What the heck was that?" It sounded like a gun. And that's because the fermentation is bubbling inside, and then it just explodes the bottle. So proper storage helps a lot. Dark, cool places, sealed containers. Just glass, amber glass, not in sunlight, that kind of thing is generally how I—besides looking at the date when it was made.

Those are some really important foundational tips, Mary. I just want to add that the oil smell is so real. And the terminology that I use to describe it is it smells like old crayons. Yes. Or bad playdough, old crayons, like some childhood smell of toxicity. Absolutely. That's so funny. Okay. So, Mary, what herbs do you consider the best for beginners to learn the craft of medicine making?

In my classes, I teach a framework. I teach herbal actions, which I call the ABCs of herbalism, learning the language to describe what the plants do to the body, what effect the plants have on the body. So that's understanding what an adaptogen, a nervine, an alterative. When I first started studying, I thought all nervines were sedatives. I had no clue that nervines could be stimulators or could be nourishing. Really understanding the nuances of the herbal actions language. Then the next thing is understanding the basics of solvency, getting to know your five basic menstruums. The other thing is learning anatomy, understanding how your body works, especially the endocrine system, is huge for being able to apply herbalism, not just on yourself, but on your family, on your community, and be an effective herbalist. Then the last thing is materia medica, which is generally like studying a particular plant and being like, "Okay, this plant, I'm going to take it every day and see how it makes me feel. I'm going to understand its constituents. I'm going to look up its folklore. I'm going to really study that plant." But I find that the materia medica, you can't go as deep without understanding the framework of herbal actions and solvency, really. And anatomy really helps. Those are the big things that I would—if I had the choice, if I wanted to take a class in the late 1900s, then I would have wanted a class on those things. I teach now what I wish I had learned then.

Let's talk about some common mistakes that you see new herbalists making when they begin medicine making. You've already explored some of the things that you've experienced. Any others?

I think the big thing is demulcents is a huge one. Trying to use a demulcent herb and getting the same effect in a tincture. The mucilage is really effective when it touches the tissue. Topical demulcents are those emollients. You need water. You need water to extract them. Cold water binds up those sugars, the polysaccharides, really well. The demulcents are the biggest stumbling block of being like, "Oh, I want to take marshmallow for my digestion, and I think I'm going to take it in a tincture." I did make a marshmallow tincture one time, and like I think I mentioned earlier that I used water a part for it and the tincture, I couldn't even drop it out. It was just like I couldn't even pour it out. It was so bound up. So, I did something right with the water, but it doesn't work that way. So, I think demulcents are the big one. And then just not heating and blending. Heating and blending, obviously, you don't want to heat and cook the crap out of it and destroy it. But heat and blending are your friends in medicine making. You can take a tincture that is like, no, okay, it's got some color. Within 15 minutes, make it nice and dark with just a little bit of heat and just a little bit of blending. Those are my two things.

I think mucilage is definitely one of the things that people learn through experimentation with, right? Speaking of experimenting, when you are crafting new formulas and working in your formulation process, what does that creative journey look like in your apothecary?

For me, again, I wanted it to be effective. I wanted to help people. In my early days, I didn't really know how I was doing something right because I was using solvents, but I wanted to help people, so I wanted it to be effective. I wanted people to be able to take it, so I wanted it to be tasty. Some of the medicine just doesn't taste good, so that's okay. I think at the bottom of my list in my early days was compliance with governmental structures, which just goes to my revolutionary activism phase. But I've come to realize that it is really important to do your due diligence because of safety. You want to—all of the herbs we're using that are available over the counter right now are not regulated because they are not known to cause harm. We do have herbs that will kill you, that will cause harm. But the ones that we're generally seeing in general herbalism that I can sell in my shop aren't going to kill someone, aren't generally going to hurt someone. But I also don't want to waste their medicine and make something ineffective. I want my medicine to work. I don't want to be ripping people off. Those were some of the things that I was looking to. I did do a lot of studying on FDA compliance, my state laws, my local laws, all of that kind of stuff. And then I would say for me, one of the biggest things was, what does my community need? What are the biggest issues that people are dealing with? So that drove what formulas I made. And then I'll make a new formula because people keep coming to the shop saying, can you make me something for this? Or for that, for menopause, I'm like, okay, finally, I'll make a menopause blend now that I'm 50. Fine. I'll make a menopause blend. You know what I mean? Those kinds of things. Sometimes you make them for yourself, sometimes you make them for your community. But now all me and all my generation Xer friends are getting into menopause, so I'm learning more about that. So, it's personal, and it's also community. It's also due diligence of keeping the community safe, and I want my medicine to work, so yeah.

It is all a journey, that's for sure. And it's so fun to continue learning and growing alongside your herbal products. I do want to hear a little bit more about you have an herb store, and so you selling your products in a facility. So what are the extra considerations that come in for you beyond that kitchen and into the compliance and safety and labor side?

Yeah. So, some of the biggest decisions I've made involved whether or not I wanted to be a distributor or how I was going to get my medicine in the world. So, my store has been open for almost 18 years. It'll be 18 years just in 2026 in Providence. I started off in a tiny little garage that I'm still in. It's like 500 square feet. I only sell what I make. I have a few supplements that I sell that my community has always come in and asked for. Can you make this? We don't want to go to the big corporate store. Can you do this? Can you get this supplement? I've got a few supplements in, but it's only stuff I make, and I don't sell anywhere else. I sold at the Farmer's Market for 18 years. I just stopped selling at the market just because it was too much, and I needed to move on and not be at the market. I'm encouraging my students to take my place at the market. Hopefully, I'll see one of my students and their herbal products at the market next year. But it was time for me to step back from that. The biggest thing for me was deciding that I wasn't going to be a bulk distributor. I wanted to be a small scale herbalist. I don't sell at any other stores, and I make very, very small batch medicine. A lot of it I grow on my farm. There's always this push to grow bigger and do this and that. I have great, wonderful friends who are huge manufacturers, and I totally respect their work. But for me, from the beginning, it was always community herbalism. It was never the next step, the next step, the next step. In fact, it's been hard not to resist the next step because there's the push of, it's so busy. You got to get a new facility, you got to get new equipment, you got to do this. I do evolve and grow and change things over time, but I am stubbornly small. I won't be bigger. Those are the kinds of questions you want to ask yourself of how you want to run your business. So, the short answer is standard operating procedures are huge. Write down everything you do, whether you're big or small. I think standard operating procedures and lot logs, keeping lots of every product I make. Even though the FDA doesn't come in and regulate me because I don't distribute and I'm super small, I still do my due diligence to make sure everything is up to standards. And that actually helped me in the fire cider lawsuit because I was keeping really good records, and I was able to prove that we were making fire cider before it was trademarked, and we won. So good record keeping is the big one.

Mary, I was hoping that the fire cider would come up in this conversation. So, would you want to speak a little bit to fire cider, what it is, infused Vinegar, and maybe the lawsuit that was placed upon you and some other herbalists in retaliation for the use of the term fire cider?

Yeah, sure. So, I don't make a lot of fire cider. I maybe sell under five gallons a year. I'm tiny. We make it in class; we barely sell it. I actually do not like the taste of fire cider. I don't take it myself. But my background is activism, right? So, when I see something wrong, generally, I can't keep my mouth shut, which is a good and bad thing. Actually, now that I'm a little older, your activism shifts. I became a foster parent instead of being out there on the streets protesting. So, my activism has definitely shifted a little bit. So anyway, a company, which I'm not allowed to say their name, that was part of the process of whatever. I can't even remember the legal term now. So a company trademarked the term fire cider in 2011. The herbal community found out after the trademark went through. So, a group of us got together to file a cancelation to the trademark, which is like a normal legal process. There was like 30 of us, 30 companies that had proof of prior use to cancel it. Then they turned around. We got a lawyer, and they said, "Okay, we only need a couple names on it." So, myself and my good friend, Nicky Telkes, who was also, I met her through activism. Short story is that our names got put on it, and then the corporation sued us. They also sued Kathi Langelier from Herbal Revolution. Because she was one of their biggest competitors. She had already even changed the name to Fire Tonic. She wasn't even using fire cider anymore. Anyway, went through a legal battle for nine years over this, went to court. We won in 2019. There was a lot of times where we could have settled and said, "Fine, take it." But we were really—the precedence of a corporation stealing herbal language was, this is what this case was. It was a precedence setting case. It's specialized language. And yeah, I wouldn't change it. It was definitely the most stressful, probably about 10 years of my life, but got beautiful friendships, beautiful relationships out of it. And during that time, we had a lot of stuff happening in our personal lives, then we were able to really be there for each other, along with Rosemary was part of our group. She didn't get sued with us, but it was just like it should have been the fire cider for her because it was Rosemary was in every legal meeting with us, every fundraiser, any meeting we had, she was there. So, it was definitely a learning experience. I know way more about trademarks than I would like to. But we won, which is great because it sets a precedent not only for herbal companies, but for any other specialized communities that they have their own language. Like skateboarders, you know what I mean? Or anybody that has—people who knit, anyone who has specialized terminology, this protects that terminology. The corporation can't just come in and say, "Well, they never trademarked it." We never trademarked it because it's our common language. That's that.

What a fascinating journey that was to watch from an outsider perspective, Mary. I just have to say that we were all cheering you guys on throughout the whole thing, and it was such a celebration when you won. It was inspiring to see these little herbalists stand up to companies with the money and backing that they had and to have you all succeed.

Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, that day we announced it was like, oh, it was like the best thing. Justice can happen.

Thank you for sharing, Mary. I want to hear, what is the one final piece of medicine making wisdom that you wish every herbalist knew and could be taught on day one?

Solvency, which honestly, people think of as a more advanced concept, but I teach it on day one. I really do. I think understanding the different solvents and how to make effective medicine that works, solvency is a game changer. So yeah, that's where I start always is solvency.

I love that. I think it's really important, too. The solvency and the solubility conversation is actually one that can really dive people into the chemistry side in a way that feels intriguing and exciting if you have a teacher who sparks that fire in you. Definitely. All right, Mary, I'm so grateful for this conversation. I feel like you have shared so much really potent information about making herbal extracts, I want to make sure that our audience knows where they can find you out in the world and the work that you're doing.

Sure, yeah. You can come visit me in person. I have an herb shop in Providence, Rhode Island. It's Farmacy Herbs, Pharmacy with an F. Like I said, we've been there for 18 years. We sell only tinctures that we make. We have a lot of herbs that we grow. We do not ship. People always want us to ship products, but I do not ship. I only sell locally. You can also find me online. I have an online program. That's maryblueherbalist. com, and I have a free webinar on there on how to become an herbalist. It's a free e-book. And yeah, come by my shop, farmacyherbs. com. Both websites have interchangeable information, but if you want to come to my store, I'm usually there in the mornings during the week, and I teach on the weekends. So, you can come take a class on my farm. We do have a couple of our 2026 events. We have an in-person program starting in March, and then I have an herb camp on my farm in July, which is really fun. Really fun.

I love it. A week on the farm with you and herbs sounds like a dream, Mary. Thanks so much for your time and teachings today. I feel so excited to have heard from you and to have you on the conference.

You're so welcome, Lindsey. Thank you so much. I appreciate you.