Lemon Glycerite!

Let’s use those peels and make a lemon glycerite! Chop them up and add them to a jar of food‑grade vegetable glycerin (ideally coconut‑derived or certified sustainably sourced if it’s from palm). You can create a lemon glycerite that can bring brightness, flavor, and a little vitamin C‑adjacent zing into your tincture blends. (I chopped up the whole peel for this one, but because there is some pith in it; there is some bitterness. If you want a pure citrus flavor then you can zest the peels before you juice them and just use those).

A quick chemistry look at a glyceriite: Glycerin can get a bad rap sometimes, but glycerin is chemically a form of an alcohol. It’s different than ethanol though. It’s a sugar alcohol with three hydroxyl groups, which gives it strong hydrogen‑bonding and water‑like polarity. That means glycerin can dissolve a wide range of polar plant compounds AND, with the help of its small non‑polar backbone, interact with some less‑polar constituents too, especially when used with a bit of heat. So, it has its use as a solvent. (It is definitely NOT meant to be smoked. So, adding it to vape pens is bad for your health.)

Here’s how I made this batch: I cover the chopped lemon peels completely with undiluted glycerin in a glass beaker and set it on an electric candle warmer. Gentle warmth helps the glycerin penetrate plant tissues and pull out aromatic compounds and polyphenols without cooking them. I let it go low and slow until it smells and tastes rich and lemony, then strain. You get a sweet‑bright lemon glycerite that is ready to use. (Again…make sure to look for sustainable and food grade glycerin).

When to use glycerin in herbalism…

When you make a dual extract (water + ethanol), you’re pulling water‑soluble (polar) and ethanol‑soluble (less‑polar) fractions separately. When you combine them, some of the more polar compounds from the water phase can fall out of solution as the overall ethanol percentage rises, creating sediment or cloudiness. This is totally normal, but visually unsettling for people. One way to avoid this is to first blend your water extract with ~10% of the total formula as glycerin, let that marry, and then slowly add the ethanol portion. Glycerin, with its strong hydrogen bonding and “bridge”‑like behavior, can help keep more of those polar constituents dispersed. You would then end up with a “triple extract”.

Glycerites are also great for anyone wanting to avoid ethanol extracts, including children and pets. (My dog formulas are extracted in ethanol and then I distill off the ethanol adding the extract then to a glycerin/water base. But we’ll talk about that in a another post.)

An experiment you can do with this lemon glycerite would be to create a dual extract of ginger (you could use the ginger decoction from making “kick a germ tea” and make a high ethanol tincture. Combine your lemon glycerite (at 10% total volume to 50% Ginger water decoction, then slowly add 40% ginger tincture.) This would give you a nicely flavored ginger “elixir” that allows the solvents to work together.

Let us know if you try this!