Master Tonic Consumption – Straining, Crying & Drinking, Oh My!!!

Two weeks ago, with the new moon, I made my very first batch of Master Tonic.

The experience was ripe with tears and snuffles and the mutterings “Holy hell!” over and over again as I chopped, blended and mixed up the incredibly potent mixture before finally closing it up in a few mason jars and placing it on a shelf in the pantry.

Over the last two weeks I have done my best to shake it up each day (though, in all honesty, I have missed a day here and there) while anxiously waiting for the full moon (the last full moon of the year!) and the experience of straining and trying this purported magical master tonic!  It just so happens that, this evening, the evening  I’m set to strain this illness fighting tonic, I’m actually not feeling quite well and became aware of a low grade fever earlier in the day. Yay!

So, strain it I did! I took the five quarts of mixture and slowly poured it through cheese cloth and into brand new jars (three quarts in total) where it will be kept until it’s gone.

After straining it, I measured the pulp into 1 tablespoon portions and put them in ice cube trays to freeze.  Once solid, they’ll be thrown into a freezer bag for use in upcoming meals…though I’m not sure what those meals will be yet and am open to any suggestions you might have!

Once everything was cleaned up and put away, it was time to take my first swig. Now, I have to preface this by saying that I really don’t like taking tinctures or tonics of any kind.  Almost every single one I’ve tried to take throughout my 37 years has made me want to gag and gagging isn’t fun.  I take them because I know they’re good for me, but I don’t ever enjoy the process.  Add to that fact that this is no less than a Fire Cider and you can hopefully see why I was incredibly nervous!!!

I spent a while looking on forums for chasers and decided on a honey chaser (a bit of warm water mixed with about a teaspoon of honey) to wash down the madness (and help cool my tongue) once ingested and prepped about half a shot of the tonic, straight (ie: not mixed with anything or watered down).

Here, for your viewing pleasure, is a wonderful collage of my reactions to the master tonic as it went down:

Despite the lovely faces I was making, it really wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated. Maybe it can be attributed to my lifetime of eating red and green chile on pretty much everything I can, but the heat really wasn’t as intense as I’d imagined it would be! Now, that’s not to say that I didn’t feel the fire as it made it’s way down from my mouth to my belly, I’m just saying it didn’t burn my eyeballs out from the inside or leave me in a puddle of snot and tears 😉

So, I definitely see this as a win on multiple fronts!  There’s the making, shaking and straining of a brand new (to me) tonic…there’s the ingesting of the tonic…and there’s the willingness to do continuing to ingest it in small quantities every single day into the near future.

And, of course, there’s this magnificence:

xoxo,
M