Chokeberry - a shrub for which you can find a place in any garden. Many people have been familiar since childhood with its interesting fruits. Aronia - an amateur berry. If you like the astringent taste of fruits and berries, plant chokeberry on your plot (this is the official botanical name for Aronia).
3 reasons why Aronia chokeberry should grow in your garden
Even if you don’t have a taste for it, anyway, let it grow with you. There are good reasons for this:
- The shrub is pretty beautiful. In spring, it blooms with fragrant white flowers, and throughout the summer it adorns the garden with chic greens and brushes of dark berries that fill in. Allocate for the chokeberry a plot where it can fill the 2-3 meters of space laid to it (in width and height).
- In addition to beauty, blackberries have other advantages. Harvest from the bush is always excellent. Aronia berries are rightfully considered medicinal. However, rowan leaves are also medicinal raw materials. Leaflets and fruits in order to strengthen the body and even sometimes treat directly from the bush. And you can dry the berries and leaves and steam them in the fall and winter, like tea. Chokeberry is believed to strengthen immunity and smooth out hypertensive events in the body. Its juice increases the level of iron in the blood, and in general, chokeberry is a very useful plant.
- Its berries, in addition to possessing medicinal properties, are distinguished by a saturated bright color, the juice squeezed out of them has a deep black and burgundy hue. A pair of chokeberry brushes will make the color of compote more beautiful, which they harvest for the winter, usually in large quantities. Tea from them will be tasty and healthy. But there is another way to “stretch” most of the nutrients from berries - preparing tinctures from chokeberry.
What is useful tincture
Rowan liquor will be appreciated by your dear guests. Her taste is able to conquer from the first sip. Such a liqueur is a natural product that does not contain dyes and preservatives. Homemade tincture of Chokeberry will keep all those vitamins that are found in each bright berry. It is no secret that alcohol tinctures are considered a very effective medicine. They act much faster compared to water counterparts (teas, water extracts). And tincture of Chokeberry is no exception. Such a drink contains fluorine, manganese, copper, iodine. It lowers cholesterol, fights swelling. It can be consumed by people with digestive problems. Tincture is able to remove even some heavy metals from the body.
Contraindications tincture
Mountain ash thickens blood. This fact suggests that people with hematopoiesis problems should not consume a lot of berries. The same goes for tinctures. Frequent presence in your menu of chokeberry berries, teas and tinctures from it can result in thrombosis and varicose veins. Excessive use of tincture of chokeberry can harm the body. Nausea, dizziness and tachycardia - and this is not the whole list of troubles associated with an excess in the blood of an alcoholic infusion of berries. Elderly people should also be careful. Tincture of chokeberry on moonshine is easily capable of causing a hypertensive crisis, stroke and other dire consequences. Young mothers who breastfeed their children should generally abandon alcohol-containing drinks, and this tincture is no exception. It is better to keep homemade tincture out of the reach of children. Tempted by a ruby tint of liquid, a child can try an alcoholic drink, which can cause poisoning.
How to prepare raw materials
Now that we have described some of the nuances associated with the berry and its extracts, it's time to start preparing a tasty and healthy tincture of chokeberry. And we will start with the most important component - the fruits of mountain ash. The taste of her berries is quite tart. Therefore, in order to reduce the amount of sugar used for tincture, the fruits of chokeberry are harvested after the first frost and only mature. Damaged and unripe berries are not able to fully enrich the taste of the drink. Peel the stems from the berries during processing. Keep the collected fruits for 2-3 days in the refrigerator, after washing them. Such a simple technique will help get rid of the astringency remaining in the berries. The alcohol base for tincture should be of excellent quality.
Getting started making homemade tinctures
To make prescription tincture of chokeberry at home, you need to use only a quality and proven alcohol base. Vodka, moonshine and even cognac, but only a trusted manufacturer and without synthetic additives are suitable for this. These are the most affordable drinks with the right ethanol content.
Chokeberry tincture on vodka
The number of products is indicated not for a full serving, but for the sample:
- A kilogram of prepared fruit.
- 250-300 grams of sugar. The amount can be reduced or slightly increased.
- A bottle (0.5 liter) of good vodka.
If you need to make more tincture of chokeberry on vodka, then multiply the number of products by two.
Cooking technology
Berries are placed in a jar in layers, sprinkling them with granulated sugar. The final layer must be sugar. Pour the entire volume of alcohol into the jar. Pay attention to ensure that the alcohol base covers the berries completely. Next, clog the jar and place it in a dark place. It is desirable that the place where the tincture will ripen is also cool. Now it is enough to shake the contents of the jar once every 3-7 days so that it mixes. It is better to insist a drink for about 3-3.5 months. Only then will you be able to appreciate the true taste of the "ripened" tincture on the chokeberry. Although many lovers of tinctures take the sample after three weeks. Strain the finished drink through several layers of gauze and, pouring it into glass containers, carefully cork.
Chokeberry tincture on moonshine
Moonshine must have a fortress of at least 40 degrees. A muddy product is absolutely not suitable for our good purposes. Dregs in moonshine means only one thing - a drink of poor quality, and it has impurities in the form of fusel oils. After using such moonshine, you will surely have headaches and nausea. More unpleasant phenomena are also possible. Therefore, we take only crystal clear moonshine of good strength. Next, follow the recipe for tincture of chokeberry.
Ingredients for Home Tincture:
- Rowan berries - about half a liter jar.
- Moonshine -1 liter.
Pour the berries into a glass jar and pour the base (moonshine). Close the dishes in which you will insist the drink tightly and place it in the cupboard. This will be enough. The cabinet is dark and suitable room temperature. Sometimes you should gently shake the vessel. Such a tincture will not have a sweet taste and may seem to someone too strong.
On cognac
Recipe homemade tincture of chokeberry on brandy will appeal to lovers of more noble and sweet drinks. A glass of chokeberry berries should be thoroughly ground with sugar (200-300 grams). Pour the mass with half a liter of cognac and mix. Add vanillin for a more pleasant aroma. Place in a glass sealed container for 20 days in a dark place. When the specified time passes, the finished tincture must be filtered through several layers of gauze. If desired, you can add spices to it: cinnamon, cloves.
Blackberry honey tincture
To prepare a healthy and fragrant honey tincture, we need:
- A pound of fruits.
- 1 liter of good vodka.
- 100 milliliters of natural fresh (liquid) honey.
We make tincture:
- We sort the berries, wash them and put them in a glass jar.
- Following the berries, we send the entire rate of honey to the container.
- Pour the berries with vodka.
- Mix the contents of the vessel and, tightly closing, set for ripening for 3 months in a cool and dark place.
How to use tincture
Ready homemade liquor has a pleasant aroma and taste. The absence of a sharp unpleasant odor indicates that it was a success. If your goal is to heal the body, it is enough to drink this drink in small doses. A tablespoon 2-3 times a day is enough. Any increase in the amount of consumption of the cord is not a cure. Drinking can be used to stimulate appetite before eating.
It’s good to drink a cup of tea in cold and dank weather by adding a spoonful of this balm to it. In this way, you “disperse” the blood and warm yourself from the inside. Do not like tea? Then add tincture to coffee, the effect of this will be similar.
You can use alcohol infusion of chokeberry in confectionery. Pouring mixed with water and sugar will become the original impregnation for homemade cakes and pastries.