Clove Tincture

✨✨SEASONAL MEDICINAL SPICES: CLOVE (Syzygium aromaticum) ✨✨

December 2018

Someone just came into the dispensary looking for clove oil for a toothache. This, and the decorative clove-studded oranges are perhaps the most familiar presences clove has for many of us. The strong scent of clove certainly reminds me of both toothache and Christmas! But how much do you really know about the broader uses of this powerful medicinal plant? Firstly, spiky woody cloves are in fact the soft crimson flower buds of this evergreen tropical tree. This spice was another highly prized commodity in the bloody Spice Wars of the 17th century.

THERAPEUTIC USE:

Cloves are used in cuisine around the world, especially to flavour meat. When aromatic plants, especially tropical spices where pathogens are particularly plentiful, are traditionally used alongside meat, there is a clue towards an antiseptic quality of a plant. Clove is very powerfully antimicrobial and antiparasitic, making it a fantastic traditional remedy for not just toothache but many other issues such as gastric infections, colds and flu. The smell we know and love is also another indication of the action; volatile oils (strong smelling plants) are often calming to the digestive tract, and the slight bitterness of cloves is thought to stimulate digestion. We use it in our Immune-Aid, alongside wormwood for bespoke anti-parasitic mixes and for it's well studied local anaesthetic qualities, which are attributed to the eugenol content in cloves.

RECIPES:

• Bone Broth
• Mulled wine