Organic Grape Alcohol: Why We Use It In BW Herbal Formulas instead of vegetable glycerin.



Byron WhiteAdvantages of using Organic Grape alcohol over vegetable glycerin in herbal formulas.

Important, Please read… more information

In our last blog I discussed the use of vegetable glycerin and the side affects it can have and why we chose to use Organic Grape Alcohol.

All the information about vegetable glycerin and alcohol I shared comes from research and years of clinical experience and testing and using the best ingredients needed to get very sick people well.

Clinical experience is everything, when it comes to getting well. What works in the trenches, working with very ill people and helping them to regain their health. All the experience I personally share, comes from over 30 years of practice, and helping over 25,000 people personally with chronic illness regain their health. We discovered what worked and what didn’t in helping people. So lets talk about some more details on what works.

Organic Grape Alcohol – The best choice

The special organic grape alcohol used in our formulas, as I described in the last blog, is organic grape alcohol. It is important, I believe to use an organic form of alcohol to avoid toxins and reactions that can be found from grain alcohol and vegetable glycerin.

The Organic Grape alcohol we use is USP. This is the standard in the industry, whether it is grain, other forms of alcohol, or glycerin, it is USP. USP, United States Pharmacopeia, means it meets or exceeds governmental requirements.

Alcohol as a base is used in most formulas, including herbal and homeopathic formulations, in this country and in other countries.

I handmade and used herbal formulations made with alcohol as a base for the formulas all during that time, and can tell you that in my experience it is the best base to have in a herbal formula, bar none. The bottom line is getting the person well.

There are occasions to use apple cider vinegar and teas for specific reasons, but grape alcohol is by far the best I have used in terms of results, tolerance, no toxicity and positive effects.

Vegetable Glycerine can ‘Mask’ the taste of the herbs and can interfere with the herbs functioning and health giving benefits!

The tongue has taste receptors (taste buds). A person can comment, “this is bitter or this is sweet, perhaps sour or spicy”. These taste receptors do other things besides just allow us to taste things. Bitter herbs, sensed by the tongue begin a series of processes in our digestion. When a sweet taste is used to mask the tastes, it also masks the functioning as well and can prevent the herbs from working as intended in the body. This is reason enough not to use vegetable glycerin or other sweeteners in herbal formulas.

Lungs also have bitter receptor sites! Bitter herbs improve asthma!

Scientist have discovered that human lungs are able to ‘taste’ bitter flavors in the same way we taste food with our tongues.

The bitter receptors in the lungs are the same as those in the mouth except they are not found in clusters and do not send any signals to the brain.

The breakthrough discovery is having a massive impact as they found that bitter compounds open lung airways far better than current drugs!

We don’t want to cover up the taste of the herbs! It is one of the main reasons we do not mask any tastes in our formulas.

Vegetable glycerin manufacturing often uses alcohol to extract the herbs:

How do most manufacturing companies that use glycerin make their herbal formulas? They use alcohol. That is right, alcohol is used first, to do the extraction of the herbs and then they remove the alcohol and replace it with glycerin. Why do they use alcohol? Because it is a better extractor of all the natural components of the herbs! Alcohol is superior when it comes to extracting the constituents from the herbs.

Homeopathic companies also use alcohol as a base in their formulas.

Most homepathic companies use alcohol as a base as well, in their formulas or in some part of the process and have since the beginning.

Benefits of using alcohol based formulas

We use a special pure organic grape alcohol to prepare our herbal extracts because it functions very well in extracting the plants ingredients and as a preservative.

The properties enable it to effectively mobilize the constituents that are active in plants from within the plants cell wall and bring them into the herbal solution. There is 100% absorption and 100% bio availability.

This is so important, especially if one’s digestive functions are impaired or one needs a response from the herbal preparation quickly. Liquid herbal extracts work quickly.



Research shows that small amounts of alcohol provide the human body with several benefits:

  • Carries the herbs in extract formula into the blood, tissues and liver.
  • Can have a supportive effect on the vasomotor center of the heart, increases blood flow to the arteries and decreasing the risk of coronary disease and dysfunction.
  • Peripheral circulation in the body can be increased.
  • Is neutral in taste which allows the various tastes of herbs to activate the receptors on the tongue. When taken, bitter, sweet, sour, salty, spicy, activating healthy responses in the body.
  • Helps prevent fluid retention
  • Supports secretions of the fundus gland in the stomach
  • Supports the defensive abilities of the immune system
  • Lowers the carcinogenic potential of nitrosamines in food.

Three of my mentors, God Bless them, they were true healers, taught that the use of alcohol among its other gifts to the body, in small doses would help carry the herbs into deeper reaches of the body. They also taught and is commonly taught in herbology, that alcohol is very good for herb extraction, preserving the minerals and nutrients in a viable state and essence of the life force of the herbs.. This has been my experience as well.

  • Tinctures remain potent for many years.
  • Tinctures act very rapidly, especially when administered under the tongue.
  • Certain herbal alkaloids and resins are extractable only into alcohol. Not water.
  • A very small amount of plant material produces a tincture consisting of many medicinal doses.
  • in addition, organic grape alcohol is hypo-allergenic and guaranteed 100% free of genetic modification.
  • Grape sugars are unique in all the plant world and because of their unique actions, organic grape alcohol does a superior job of extracting medicinal plant constituents. The results are an herbal extract that is especially safe, fast acting, effective.

For more information on our formulas:

Please check out our previous blogs and website,

Best wishes, Byron White


copyright Aug 21, 2012 by byron white  all rights reserved


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