My ode to one of the most healing elixirs on the planet, popularized by herbalist Rosemary Gladstar in her books for well over 35 years. Having loved the stuff for years, I just made my first half-gallon batch on July 4th - my personal Independence Day from mainstream medicine.
Recently, three business people with few scruples and less common sense, having gotten the idea and initial recipe from a friend, who no doubt came by it through Rosemary Gladstar or one of her many proteges, decided to trademark the phrase "fire cider," claiming - dishonestly - that they had invented it, despite it having been around for decades - if not generations - under that name.
Suddenly, lay herbalists all over the country had their listings removed from Etsy and other websites for intellectual property infringement, even though many of the said herbalists had been selling fire cider for far longer than the name had been trademarked.
Being something of a rebel myself, I have made and will continue to make Fire Cider using its original name, crediting Rosemary Gladstar as the original source - even though she herself acknowledges that it is far older than she, and even she learned about it from an older herbalist - and publicly thumb my nose at the cretins who trademarked the phrase, with the firm belief that they should be ashamed of themselves for trying to capitalize on OTHER PEOPLE'S WORK while claiming it as their own.
It is up to us, We the People, for keeping knowledge such as this free and available to the public at large. Lives may well depend upon it.
For those who wish to learn how to make fire cider for yourselves, I direct you to the YouTube videos that Rosemary Gladstar and Mountain Rose Herbs have generously provided to the public for free.
Herbalists in general are a generous lot, and she is one of the finest, along with Susun Weed, both of whom were inspired by my personal favorite herbalist, the late British veterinarian and master herbalist Dr. Juliette di Bairicli-Levy.
I recommend the work of all three herbalists highly.
For those with kids or animals, the books on herbalism by Dr. di Bairicli-Levy are invaluable, as she spent the better part of seventy years traveling the world and learning the herbal medicine traditions of people in every part of the world, initially as it pertained to their animals, but ultimately for use with humans as well.
Her "Complete Herbal for the Dog and Cat" and "Complete Herbal for Barnyard Animals" (which includes dogs and cats, but in less detail) are must-have volumes for anyone with animals.
She successfully ran a very busy animal clinic in London, England, where she was routinely curing even distemper and rabies cases - diseases that modern veterinary science still considers incurable today - and she was curing them in the 1930s.
Do yourself - and your family - a favor, buy her books, and keep them at the ready, for whatever may come along. You will be glad you did.