Hawthorn brandy/ tincture?

[Susie]

Help? I went foraging this morning and got lots of hawthorn berries. I went on a herbal walk recently and the woman doing it said you could make hawthorn tincture which was good for heart complaints/ blood pressure by putting the berries in brandy. And I know lots of people with high blood pressure who like brandy! (Connection perhaps? ). Win-win! However I have questions:

I'm new to foraging and I'm 99.9% sure all the berries I got were hawthorn. Could someone reassure me that there is not something which looks almost exactly the same which is poisonous which I could have got instead,

Does anyone have a recipe for hawthorn brandy? I thought a tincture might not be very exciting, so I googled and found this one for hawthorn liqueur: http://www.herbsociety.org.uk/kh-hedger ... wthorn.htm - does this sound like it would work? And do I put all the cloves and stuff in at the same time as the berries?

Thanks for any input. Foraging is fun, isn't it? I'm going looking for sloes and rosehips tomorrow! I just wish I knew what I was doing a bit more...

[frozenthunderbolt]

Watch putting cloves in for any significant length of time, unless you like cough syrup. I suggest you make a tiny bottle of clove essence using just booze and cloves and add it a drop or two at a time untill you are happy with the flavour.