Legend has it that Achilles had painted himself with a tincture of a plant to make himself invulnerable to arrows (from a magical centaur no less), everywhere but on his heel. That tincture was made with yarrow. We don’t know much about arrow invulnerability or centaurs, but we do know yarrow is a wonderful flowering plant that is native to Missouri that has many uses, one of them being a main ingredient in our Hibiscus Gin.
Native American herbal medicine makes extensive use of yarrow. Among the Micmac people, the stalk was chewed or stewed to induce sweating to “break” fevers and colds. The stalk was also pounded to pulp and applied to bruises, sprains and swelling. The Cherokee, Iroquois and Mogehan peoples used it as a digestive aid. the Chinese used it in divination rituals for ages to find love. The internal and external uses of yarrow are truly endless.
So now that we gave you that history, we didn’t know any of that when we noticed the flowering plant all over the state of Missouri’s grasslands. You may have thought it was a weed. It’s not. It’s a herbaceous, perennial that flowers from May to July. We found that when distilled it had a beautiful, light, rosey note to it. The taste people usueally think Hibiscus or rose tastes like, is actually yarrow. The next time you taste something super floral, we bet it has yarrow in it.
For purists, the Latin name is Achillea millefolium (yup, named after that Achilles guy). It’s long stalk grows to varying heights with clusters of tiny white or yellow flowers, that emit a characteristic aroma. Luckly, it also taste delicious. It has a sweetened brightness to it that matched other botanicals we were interested in (elderflower, juniper etc). It becomes the botanical glue that binds all other together (we’ll spare the LORT joke). It is one of the main components in our Hibiscus Gin and is one of the main reasons for it’s brighten, top note flavor profile.

So whether you are into arrows, centaurs or Missouri native plants, we suggest you look into yarrow. We did and found it makes a wonderful compliment to many things – namely our Hibiscus Gin.