Written by Selima Iwilla Harleston Lust
Clinical Herbalist & Co-Founder, Iwilla Remedy

Published November 3, 2026

You have been filling the jar and pouring liquid over the herbs, and your tinctures have turned out fine. So why bother with math? Because knowing how to make a tincture with any herb is what frees you from someone else's recipe.

This post walks through the handful of formulas behind every tincture: the ratio, what to do when your herb drinks up all the liquid, and how to build your own alcohol menstruum. The numbers are simple, and they make every batch repeatable.

Prefer to watch instead? Selima covers this topic in this video.

What a Tincture Ratio Really Tells You

When you see 1:5 on a bottle, the first number is the weight of the herb in grams and the second is the volume of menstruum, the herbalist's word for your liquid solvent, in milliliters. So 1:5 means 1 gram of herb for every 5 milliliters of menstruum.

The formula is one line: grams of herb × the ratio number = milliliters of menstruum. Have 100 grams? That is 500 milliliters at 1:5. Harvested 32 grams of lemon balm from the garden? Then 32 × 5 is 160 milliliters. Weigh your herb rather than measuring it in cups, because a cup of fluffy chamomile and a cup of dense elecampane root are nowhere near the same weight.

How to Read 1:2, 1:5 and 1:10

A bigger second number means more liquid for the same amount of herb, so a 1:10 is less concentrated by weight than a 1:5. That does not make it a poorer tincture. Some herbs simply need more menstruum to extract well, and the ratio is only part of what decides quality. The solvent you choose, whether the herb stays submerged, and how you store it matter too.

Dried herbs rehydrate once they hit the liquid, so a jar that looked full when you poured can look very different the next morning. I have made chamomile tinctures at 1:8, 1:10 and 1:12 for exactly this reason. Needing a different ratio is not a mistake. It means you are watching the plant.

What to Do When Your Herb Soaks Up the Menstruum

Say you start with 50 grams of chamomile at 1:8, which is 400 milliliters, and the next day the herb is no longer submerged. Do not panic, and do not top it off with a random splash of alcohol. Write the ratio on the jar, estimate a new ratio (say 1:10, which is 500 milliliters), and subtract: 500 minus 400 leaves 100 milliliters of the same menstruum to add.

If the herb drinks that up too, repeat the same steps. Which ratio do you start from the second time? I give my answer, with every calculation on screen, in the video.

How to Build Your Own Menstruum, Including With 190 Proof Alcohol

A tincture labeled 40% is not pure alcohol. It is 40% alcohol and 60% water. To build 500 milliliters of 40% menstruum from 200 proof alcohol, multiply 500 × 0.40 to get 200 milliliters of alcohol, then add water until you reach 500 milliliters total. The same method gives you 50% (250 milliliters of alcohol) or 70% (350 milliliters).

Working with 190 proof, which is 95% alcohol? Use the concentration formula C1 × V1 = C2 × V2: 95 × V1 = 40 × 500, so V1 is about 210.5 milliliters of alcohol, topped up with water to 500 milliliters. Measure the alcohol first and add water up to the final volume, because alcohol and water contract slightly when mixed. A set of graduated cylinders makes this much easier.

How to Choose an Alcohol Percentage for Your Plant

Beginners are usually taught to stay between 40 and 60% alcohol, which captures a wide range of constituents. As you learn more, you can match the solvent to the plant. Mucilage-rich and polysaccharide-rich plants such as burdock and astragalus generally do better with more water. Aromatic plants such as peppermint, chamomile and lavender may benefit from more alcohol. Resinous plants such as myrrh and frankincense usually call for higher alcohol still. These are guidelines, not rules, because every plant holds many kinds of constituents at once.

Not sure where to start? Look at what experienced makers print on their labels, use that as a reference point rather than a recipe, and check it against what you know about the plant. Then make two or three small batches of the same herb at different alcohol percentages and compare the aroma, taste, color and feel. That is how you learn from the plant, not only from a chart.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why weigh the herb instead of measuring it in cups?
A cup measures volume, not weight, and different herbs have very different densities. Weight is the measurement you can repeat.

Is a 1:10 tincture weaker than a 1:5?
It is less concentrated by weight, but it is not automatically worse. Some herbs need more menstruum to stay submerged and extract well.

Why add water up to the final volume instead of measuring it separately?
Alcohol and water contract slightly when mixed, so their volumes are not perfectly additive. Measuring the alcohol first and topping up with water gives you the volume you planned.

What should I write on my tincture label?
Common and Latin name, plant part, fresh or dried, ratio, menstruum and percentage, method, and date. If you adjust the ratio partway, update the label.

Conclusion

The math is not there for its own sake. It gives you more confidence, more precision and a tincture you can make the same way again. Start with the weight of your herb, let the plant tell you when the ratio needs to change, and write everything on the label.

Want the calculator to do the work for you? Get the free tincture calculator, included in the free Tincture Making Series: join the free series here.

Related: Watch the tincture math video

This content is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Selima Iwilla Harleston Lust is a clinical herbalist, author, and co-founder of Iwilla Remedy. Her work centers health sovereignty, cultural lineage, and evidence-informed plant medicine.