Essentials oils for flavor.

[All_beesness]

I've been looking into the safety of Lavender essential oil (as I'd like to make a lavender mead of some kind, and I happen to have an ounce of 100% pure organic lavender essential oil and thought, Heck! if it's safe why not use it?) however. after reading this thread and some searching online for credible sources I found this:

Medline Plus at the National Institute of Health gives a very vague explanation of the safeties of ingesting this essential oil, but definitely doesn't stand behind it.
See that page here: http://tinyurl.com/Medline-on-Lavender-EO

Then I found something a bit more conclusive from the University of Maryland that basically says: "It's TOXIC!" It can cause constipation, headache (paradoxically enough), and increased appetite.
See that page here: http://tinyurl.com/UMM-on-Lavender-EO

I think one of the basic things to understand with lavender (which is the great thing about it) is that it is known to relax the body, even the central nervous system. I used to carry a bottle around with me in nursing school to help calm nervous geriatric patients. But in highly potent forms, well too much of a good thing can still be too much. And I imagine that is why essential oils are not used often in fermented beverages.

 

[rayway]

I have used LorAnn Orange Oil in a Orange Creamsicle mead to bump up the orangey-ness. It's specifically designed to be used in baking, fondants, etc. Found it here: http://www.vanillafoodcompany.ca/LorAnn-Candy-Oils-p/lor-candy-par-1oz.htm

It took my mead from good to incredible.

 

[All_beesness]

I have used LorAnn Orange Oil in a Orange Creamsicle mead to bump up the orangey-ness. It's specifically designed to be used in baking, fondants, etc. Found it here: http://www.vanillafoodcompany.ca/LorAnn-Candy-Oils-p/lor-candy-par-1oz.htm

It took my mead from good to incredible.

I LOVE Orange Creamsicle! It was my absolute favorite ice cream flavor growing up
but I digress.....
I took a trip to the natural foods store down the road from my place yesterday and wandered up and down their aisles of essential oils, dried herbs and what-not. Then I found a rather large section of herb extracts labeled as "herbal supplements". When I looked at the prescribed uses on the bottles they said to add between 2 and sometimes 40 drops depending on the herb to a cup of water to drink each day.

So, with that in mind, I would guess that "herbal supplements" which are intended for ingestion are safer in food products than essential oils. But if it were me I'd trust a good herbalist more than I would my own superficial knowledge on the matter.

 

[rayway]

The stuff is two (and a half?) years old now and pure gold The others in my local wine guild are trying to figure out which category to enter it in for the Provincial competition. It's got juicy orange, creamy vanilla, and just a touch of bitter orange to keep it from being too sweet. Those LorAnn oils have a ton of different flavours from natural fruit to rum butter.

 

[EJM3]

I'll have to ask my friends who make candy how much a bottle or two of different flavors cost as they use them all the time to make candies.

 

[rayway]

Cheap like borscht - or nearly so I paid $5-$6 for a fl oz and it goes a long way.

I'm considering buying a bit of a multi-pack for some 1 gallon experimental batches: rum butter, rootbeer, pecan pie...Damn "to Brew" list keeps getting longer and longer.

 

[EJM3]

I try to keep my to-brew-list down to something reasonable, like a 40 volume set, for the index.

Actually something more like 3 pages of ideas so far...