Est. 1824 · Revived for the present century
Tinctures, bitters & botanical preparations — drawn from the meadow, the hedgerow, and two hundred years of the family ledger. Gathered at first light. Bottled without hurry.
Purveyors of honest herbs. No serpents’ oil sold here since 1831.
Nº 01 Filipendula ulmaria · gathered July
Chapter I
Four tinctures kept in every Mosswell case since the first ledger. The lens breathes; the specimens change. Scroll slowly, as you would turn a page.
Nº 01 Queen of the Meadow
Filipendula ulmaria
For heat of the stomach and rheumatic complaint. The flowers, steeped, are rich in salicylates — the very family of compounds from which modern aspirin took its name, the chemists having borrowed from our meadows and called it progress. Sweetens a sour stomach where harsher remedies scald; perfumes the still-room like honey and cut hay.
Nº 02 The Traveller’s Herb
Artemisia vulgaris
A bitter tonic, taken before meals to rouse a sluggish digestion. Folk custom slipped a leaf into the boot for long roads, and under the pillow for vivid dreams — we promise nothing for the latter, though customers report their sleep is rarely boring. Flavoured ale for centuries before the hop became fashionable, and bears the grudge still.
Nº 03 The Country Medicine Chest
Sambucus nigra
Taken hot at the first shiver of a cold, it opens the pores and settles catarrh; taken cold, in cordial, it is simply June in a glass. The old wives called the elder a whole medicine chest growing in one hedge. The old wives, as is usual in these matters, were right.
Nº 04 Soldier’s Woundwort
Achillea millefolium
The staunching herb. Achilles is said to have packed it into the wounds of his soldiers, and field surgeons carried it well into the age of gunpowder. A styptic for cuts; a hot tea for fevers, to bring on a useful sweat. Divides opinion in the teacup; commands perfect unanimity in the field kit.
We are obliged by the present century to note: these are historical preparations, not prescriptions. Consult your physician — the meadow is not a pharmacy, whatever our sign has said since 1824.
Chapter II
The method is the one entered on the ledger’s first page, annotated by eight hands since. It has survived every improvement proposed to it.
Cut at first light, once the dew has lifted but before the sun has formed an opinion. Each lot is logged in the field book: date, weather, and the temper of the gatherer — all three affect the tincture.
Laid loose on ash-wood racks in the dark of the loft and turned daily. Haste has ruined more herbs than frost ever managed.
Chopped fine, set in grain spirit, and sealed under wax for six weeks in the cool of the cellar. The jar is turned on Sundays — by tradition rather than by chemistry, and we see no reason to disappoint either.
The marc goes to the old screw press — she groans, but she holds — and the liquor is passed through paper until it runs bright as bottle glass.
Rested a fortnight, decanted into amber glass, stoppered, dressed in terracotta wax, and entered into the ledger under its number. The ledger never forgets.
Chapter III
What the year gives, in the order it gives it. The wheel turns with your scroll — as, we find, does everything else.
Nettle tops, cleavers, elder leaf. The impatient season — everything gathered small, young, and slightly ahead of itself.
Meadowsweet, elderflower, yarrow in full flower. The still-room at its busiest; the ledger at its most smug.
Mugwort before seed, rosehips after frost, hawthorn when the lanes turn red. Gathering with one eye on the weather.
Roots — dandelion, burdock — and the long indoor season of pressing, filtering, labelling and defending the fire from the cat.
Chapter IV
Mosswell, this present day
Dear correspondent,
Enquiries are received with pleasure and answered in the order they arrive — generally within two turnings of the compost. State your complaint plainly, your county if you are proud of it, and whether you take your bitters before or after the argument.
Write to us at ledger@mosswell.example, or call at the shop: No. 7, The Green — the door with the moss on the north side, which is to say, our door.
Yours in good order,
E. Mosswell & heirs