Clary Sage-distilling for essential oil/finding a buyer

[Cricket]

I have a 5 x 20 ft. French intensive bed full of blooming clary sage. Does anyone know when you harvest the flowers? Does anyone know what clary sage essential oil is used for or how expert do you have to be to make an essential oil? The beautiful small distilling equipment I have seen on the net is too expensive for me right now. I'm looking for something to do with these blooms. Is there any other way to use them or sell them? I'm way beyond the few plants stage. I either have to find a use for them or tear them out because they keep multiplying. My sales for clary sage plants on the Farmers Market has been nil this year so far.

[Lavandula Girl]

Don't those distillers make you cry? So pretty, and so expensive! Have you tried an uglier distiller? Scientific equipment distributors, maybe? There are probably a couple websites devoted to the building of your own, too, which you can then squirrel up in the mountains and defend with a shotgun! (never mind - you have to realize that I'm sitting in the Shenandoah Valley typing this - HA!) Clary is used for so many things - the balsam-ish smell makes it great for potpourris - would that work at your market? Bath oil, soap, etc, too. Dry the flowers if you can't use them quickly - they keep their scent nicely. I understand it's used for old fashioned liqueurs, too. Distill it in vodka for a few weeks, and then add simple syrup. With it's smell, you could probably combine it with currant or cherry to make a tasty aperitif! Of course, that brings us back to that still in the maountains! Oh - and if all else fails, see if the local natural herb place will buy the dried flowers from you - I sell dried lavender to my local place every year.

[TastyofHasty]

(runs off to get aromatherapy book) ... Magical Aromatherapy, to be exact...

(in pertinent part) (ahem!) ...
Perhaps clary sage's most celebrated effect upon humans is its legendary ability to induce euphoria when inhaled for a few moments. However, as Robert Tisserand warns us in his excellent book The Art of Aromatherapy, deliberately abusing clary sage oil for this purpose will result only in severe headaches. Essential oils, like synthetic drugs, can be misused and overdoses of their scents alone are possible.

In times of great mental or emotional stress, inhale clary sage essential oil. This will allow you to temporarily release these problems. Afterward, calmly deal with them in the appropriate way.

For more general purposes, clary sage essential oil can be inhaled for short periods of time to relax the body and mind. Inhale shortly before bed to encourage sleep and to produce vivid dreams.

Marcel Lavabre, in The Handbook of Aromatherapy, writes that clary sage oil may be of help in releasing female sexual dysfunction (frigidity).

I love to put a few drops of clary sage essential oil in a bath. It's expensive, so I don't do it often.
Here's one webpage:http://www.ritualjewelry.com/make_essential_oils.html
Here's another: http://www.glassaffinity.com/essences.htm

Wouldn't count on making a lot of $$$ out of this project... but what do I know!!!??

[TastyofHasty]

Here's a link to Edmund Scientifics' little "Distilling Kit" for $29.95:
http://scientificsonline.com/product.asp?pn=3071684&bhcd2=1153061381

All it says is:
Kit captures favorite garden fragrances - roses, lavender, etc. Detailed instructions show how to capture a flower's essential oils in usable form, make perfume, cologne, after shave, etc. Five-step distilling process involving lard, ethyl alcohol and raw floral material is the "key".

http://scientificsonline.com/images/250/30716-84.eps.jpg

It is prob'ly too little for what you want ... actually ... the INSTRUCTIONS are probably more what you want than the KIT which may be something you could put together from tubing & other stuff you could FIND ...

[johno]

You're giving me ideas for all this corn, hmm ...
But really, this is pretty fascinating. I'm curious, how is clary sage different from / similar to garden sage? Can the regular sage flowers be used this way also?

[Lavandula Girl]

Clary is Salvia Sclarea, so it's the same family. It can be used interchangeably with other sages in cooking. Last year my homemade liqueurs included on that was lemon, sage and cardamom, and it's wonderful. In the winter my husband and I use it to make toddies. I did that with a vodka decoction, not a distiller, because I'm holding out for a copper one! :rolleyes: I'd probably be much better served to buy on of those scientific ones, or make my own, but then I'd never get the pretty one.

[TastyofHasty]

Lavendula Girl, I LOVE cardamon(m) ... can it be grown, I wonder? Your liqueurs sound YUMMY! TASTY!!

BTW ... Edmund Scientifics is mostly science-educational stuff ... for kids ... they also had a more expensive still set-up for about $125. I wonder if you could use an old coffee-maker (tempered glass pot) with a big cork for the top and a some plastic tubing such as you buy for fish tanks, stuck through it ... (you find lots of old coffee-makers at garage sales) but I don't know the distilling process. It IS interesting.

[johno]

Anybody out there have plans/guidelines for building a bigger still (out of copper?)

[TastyofHasty]

eBay has lots of plans for sale ... how's this little baby:
http://webzoom.freewebs.com/88_pieces_of_eight/MiniStill1.jpg

it's $46 today & two more days to go ...
here's the link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Stove-Top-Moonshine-Still-Whiskey-Brandy-Alcohol-Boiler_W0QQitemZ140007005891QQihZ004QQcategoryZ118 QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

basically, here's a link to a search on eBay for "alcohol still":
http://search.ebay.com/alcohol-still_W0QQfromZR40QQfsooZ1QQfsopZ1QQssPageNameZWLR S

or check out "copper still"
http://i2.ebayimg.com/05/i/07/8d/d0/c1_2.JPG
RARE ANTIQUE WORKING COPPER STILL, THUMPER, & CONDENSER
present bid is $93 ... 7 days left to go!
There are quite a few antique copper stills on eBay today.
This is interesting.

[Lavandula Girl]

Cardamom is tropical - boo hoo! It's native to places that get 150 or more annual inches of rain, like Malaysia. That's why it's so expensive. I get the pods at a big Korean/ethnic grocery in Centreville, VA called Grandmart, but any asian grocer would probably have them, and of course there's the internet! I love it because it's more exotic than cinnamon, but can be used in a lot of the same places. The essential oil is used medicinally for digestion, so when I combine that with sage, ostensibly a cold and insomnia aid, and lemon, which soothes and refreshens, that's the perfect winter evening drink, right? (or at least that's my story, and I'm sticking to it like glue!) The stills you found on the internet are... um... interesting! I'll bet one of my neighbors got the computer hooked up! So far for what I'm using my herbs for, I don't really need the distiller. I'm more interested in the aesthetic value of those old copper ones, and therefore will wait awhile, for the perfect on to find me. (Maybe if I leave Santa enough liqueur this Christmas.... hmm)

[TastyofHasty]

Cricket, here is another snippet of info from Herbs & Things, Jeanne Rose's Herbal: (this is what it says ... )

Clary sage (Salvia sclarea) is one of several aromatic herbs of the genus Salvia. The oil makes a fine fixative. A mucilage of the seed or a decoction of the herb is used in eye complaints; the decoction is used in baths for backaches and as a douche for the whites. It can also be drunk for running of the reins (a nice medieval term for a discharge from the penis). An infusion in wine makes a pleasant cordial; it was thought that the drink also had the powers to bring on one's menstrual cycle, to expel the afterbirth, and to provoke one to venery. In the past, clary sage was used locally to draw forth things from the flesh; and the power of the root, because it causes sneezing, was used to purge the nose of mucus. The fresh leaves dipped in flour, eggs, and milk and sauteed in butter are eaten as a vegetable. Its properties are thought to be antispasmodic and balsamic.

Unfortunately, most of it is not the sort of thing you say in advertising ... :p ... but have you tried saving any of it in oil?

One other book, The Herb Book, by John Lust, said the oil is a good ingredient for soap making. And he too mentions clary sage oil as a fixative. (I just checked & hard to find exactly how it is used as a "fixative," for making other scents long-lasting, I think.)

This page seems to have good advertising-type words re. clary sage:
http://www.alchemy-works.com/essential_oils_clary_sage.html

(But I am NOT a salesperson ... so what do I know???!)

[bluelacedredhead]

Hmmm, looking on eBay for stills huh Tasty?? Maybe I'll post that recipe for Sumac Gin yet? ;)

[GreenZone]

Clary sage is a lovely, easily grown plant that I've grown for some years but it should be mentioned that it's quite a vigorous self seeder. Last I heard it was a noxious weed in Washington state and perhaps a few others. So if you grow this plant it might be wise to do a lot of deadheading to try to keep seed dispersal to a minimum.

Randel