- Parts used: The whole plant, preferably dried leaves and flowers.
- Aroma & taste: With the exception of Rue, Wormwood is the bitterest herb
known, but it is very wholesome. The leaves resist putrefaction, and have been
on that account a principal ingredient in antiseptic fomentations. Used with
moderation, wormwood offers beers and ales a pleasant taste and a fine
compliment to the heaviness of the flavor of malt. - Brewing method: In 1692, Dr. Worth cautioned that Wormwood is
extremely bitter and needs to be used with a judicious hand and that hasn't
changed since. For a standard 5 gallons / 19L batch, consider boiling half an
ounce for about an hour.
BOTANICAL DESCRIPTIONWormwood is a herbaceous perennial plant, with a hard, woody rhizome. The stems are straight, growing to 0.8-1.2m / 2.5-4ft tall, grooved, branched, and silvery-green. The leaves are spirally arranged, greenish-grey above and white below, covered with silky silvery-white hairs, and bearing minute oil-producing glands; the basal leaves are up to 25cm / 10in long, bipinnate to tripinnate with long petioles, with the cauline leaves (those on the stem) smaller, 5-10cm / 2-4in long, less divided, and with short petioles; the uppermost leaves can be both simple and sessile (without a petiole). Its flowers are pale yellow, tubular, and clustered in spherical bent-down heads (capitula), which are in turn clustered in leafy and branched panicles.
Flowering is from early summer to early autumn; pollination is anemophilous. The fruit is a small achene; seed dispersal is by gravity.
It grows naturally on uncultivated, arid ground, on rocky slopes, and at the edge of footpaths and fields.
