Potions: A Guide to Cocktails, Tinctures, Tisanes, and Other Witchy Concoctions

by Nikki Van De Car, Anna Godeassi (Illustrator)

From Nikki Van De Car, the best-selling author of Practical Magic,  comes a fully-illustrated, enchanted introduction to the witch's world of modern potions, including tinctures, infusions, herbal DIYs, and magically-infused craft cocktails.

Witchcraft meets cocktail craft in  Potions , a contemporary introduction to the world of infusions, tisanes and herbal teas, homemade tinctures, and expertly mixed alcoholic beverages, all imbued with a healthy dose of everyday enchantment. As with all magic, intention is what makes a potion a potion, and author Nikki Van De Car uses her signature blend of holistic remedies, DIY projects, and accessible magical rituals to guide readers through the wide world of potion-making. From homebrewed kombuchas to crystal-charged cocktails, this fully illustrated guide is an essential addition to the arsenal of kitchen witches and enchanted mixologists. 

Organized around a series of intentions -- including Creativity, Calm, Love, Harmony, and Protection -- the chapters in this book each include teas, cocktails, kombuchas, non-alcoholic beverages, and DIY components like bitters, shrubs, and infusions, that enhance the reader's spellwork. Every recipe will involve a brief ritual of some kind, whether setting an intention, or using a crystal, sun magic, or moon magic, and each recipe will involve some form of herbal magic. Each cocktail is accompanied by a vibrant, full-color illustration, and each chapter includes longer mystical rituals to support the reader’s overall magical practice.

Genres: Witchcraft

176 pages, Hardcover

Published August 23, 2022

About the author

Nikki Van De Car is a blogger, knitter, and mother whose books What To Knit When You're Expecting and What To Knit: The Toddler Years chronicle the way her knitting changed as her daughter grew. Her popular knitting blog has received over 1.5 million pageviews since its inception in June 2008, and her patterns have been published in Interweave and Ply magazines, among others. Nikki lives in Hawaii with her family.

Come visit her on Instagram at @nikkivandecar and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/sereknity/

Reviews

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is fine if you’re someone who hasn’t made tinctures/bitters/shrubs/kombucha before.

If you are, it’s pretty samey, and loads of the cocktail recipes are just classic cocktails with a couple of drops of homemade bitters added.

Beautifully presented, but not for cocktails nerds/fermentation folks or herbalists.

[Lady Iris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Personally, the reason why this potion book is so mid for me is because it is just recipes, and puts the work onto you if you are trying to actually learn how to spellcraft with potions. It gives a very very brief description as to what potions are, and then immediately its just a potion book. If you wanted something interesting I would recommended other potion books, While I enjoy the recipes, it really was just that and is more a mixology course than a magical lesson.

[Jina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some great simple recipes with a handful of rituals. I appreciate that these potions have been put into intention aligned categories (at the very least), but I also really appreciate when each ingredient is given meaning by the author - which was not done here. I also wish the crystals were given more meaning besides the header of the chapter.