Backlog: Vintage Brew

Pop quiz: An easy one this time. What contains as much Vitamin C as an orange?
Unless you're a dunderhead, you know it's three rosehips.
Rosehips are what we herb and potion nuts call a nutritive, for obvious reasons: Besides Vitamin C, they have a healthy handful of other vitamins and nutrients --- a sort of food-in-a-fruit.

Not this winter but last, I gathered a stock of plump dogrose hips --- at Solstice, to be precise. The best time to gather rosehips is after the first frost --- this is when the nutrient content is highest. It happened to be frosty that night, as well, and like a moron I forgot to eat enough raw garlic and got a cold. (Winter Solstice rites in my home district are a rather brutal all-nighter if you get poor weather.)
The hips then went into maceration (steeping) for a wildly long time, even for my tinctures: Six months. I wanted to extract as much as possible, and see what the result would be like --- and, knowing nothing would explode, thought: Why not?

The product --- shown above in a test-tube --- was very dark and concentrated, wonderfully rich and tangy and piquant with citrusy bite.

Next came settling and decanting.
Rosehips are most nutrient-rich in their outer rinds --- most fruits are. Their insides are full of seeds and a prickly fuzz. These need to be removed unless you want a cloudy potion, and the best method I've found is to simply let them settle, then decant or pour off the clear upper layer. For the last dregs (to minimize waste of a valuable potion!), test-tubes were used to allow as much settling depth as possible (above, with sediments). The final result --- clear ruby drops of pure health. Won't Pomfrey be pleased.
This winter, I may or may not make more of this tangy tonic, seeing as I have a couple of bottles of it already and it lasts awhile.

The idea of "aging" a brew, creating richer flavor and furthering extraction, is appealing. But I am not the first to think of it: The Chinese have been known to macerate herbal mixtures for as long a time. Technically, such a length of time is not required, at least not anymore --- for example, if percolation is used, a decent extraction can be obtained in a couple of days. I have yet to set up for this method, however --- it requires certain tools.
Until then, I use a method that produces a genuine vintage brew!