The tonka bean is of great importance for perfumery. The tincture prepared from it has an agreeable, penetrating odor, and in mixing it with other odors, great care has to be exercised, so that the tonka odor is not too prominent. The tincture is prepared as follows: Bring the beans, without comminuting them or removing the white coating adhering to them, into a flask, add the alcohol, and let the whole macerate, with frequent shaking, for about 14 days. Then filter off the fluid. The tincture prepared in this manner only contains the cumarin found as a white coating upon the beans, and is used only for the finest products. Now take the beans from the flask, comminute them, return them to the flask, and add 1¼ quarts of alcohol. This extract gives an excellent tincture suitable for products of medium quality.
Cumarin tincture.—Cumarin 5½ drachms, best quality of alcohol 1 quart.
Heliotropin tincture.—The white crystals of heliotropin yield with alcohol a solution clear as water, which is much used in the preparation of Extrait héliotrope.
Vanilla tincture.—Best quality of Bourbon vanilla 5¼ ozs., alcohol of best quality 2 quarts.
To prepare the tincture proceed as follows: Cut the so-called vanilla pods lengthwise and then into as small pieces as possible, and bring the latter together with the alcohol into a flask. Some perfumers triturate the commimuted vanilla with sugar in a porcelain mortar, whereby the small-seed bodies contained in the pod are ground up, and a better yield is claimed to be obtained. Though by this trituration a tincture of a darker color may be obtained, the color alone is by no means a proof of the strength of the tincture. Care must be had to bring the white, downy crystals of vanillin found upon the vanilla pods into the flask.
Vanillin tincture.—Vanillin 1½ drachms, alcohol 2 quarts.
Vitivert tincture.—Vitivert rhizome 8 ozs., best quality of alcohol 2 quarts.
Reduce the rhizome to as fine a powder as possible, bring the latter into a flask, add the alcohol and shake frequently.
Juniper-berry tincture.—Juniper berries 2 lbs., best quality of alcohol 5 pints.