WHAT IS DISTILLATION?

May 20, 2024

The beauty and magic of the age old distillation process really begins in the gardens. It begins with planning, cultivating and nurturing the plant material (roses, lavender, yarrow, calendula, german chamomile) you intend to transform into a product that has an added value. For example - just plucked rose petals become rose hydrosol and baskets of lavender, tied and hung to dry become lavender hydrosol.

According to Ann Harman, in her wonderful book, Harvest to Hydrosol, "distillation is the act of volatilizing a (plant) material by apply heat and water. It's isolating or liberating the essences of therapeutic plants. When distilling plants, we are referring to using a still, heat and water to aid in the process."

We use both our large and small copper alembic pots, blending water and botanicals and the applying heat. As the water heats - it evaporates. This distillation act creates steam - and in this component is the lovelies of all extractions of the plant - we call hydrosol - the "cellular water from the plant cells."

Yarrow, rosemary, lavender, rose, chamomile - oh - from so much variety -these distaillates can be produced.