I'm late to this party.
But, I'm mega surprised that in 12 pages of this thread no one has yet drawn the link between actual herbal medicinal tincture making and the ethanol extract.
In a very abbreviated nutshell; traditional tincture making is a two week minimum process- To extract all the medicinal constituents desired- Though depending on the herbalist you're talking to some will say 4-6 weeks. Cool, Dark place, with shaking when thought of.
Extracting clearly takes time- no reason to expect great results after only a short soak.
Different herbs have different physiochemical profiles; and the desired medicinal components living in different forms and different ratios; some being polysaccharides, or flavinoids etc etc etc, each being having it's own solubility profile- preferring to be extracted in alcohol or water depending.
So some herbs call for extracting at different % alcohol- to maximally extract both the alcohol and water soluble chemicals.
More Alcohol % is not necessarilly better
Though, Mikey's intent on this tek was in part at least, to eliminate bodyload.
All the talk about oxygen % and the degradation of psilocybin etc etc I can't speak intelligently about; but I imagine that if the alkaloids that lead to 'body load'/ a spiritual trip are water soluble, then bringing the alcohol content of the solvent down to somewhere closer to 50% would produce a trip that had a flavor closer to straight eating the mushrooms.
edit: Even a 50% alcohol extract (Take Everclear, or grain alcohol, 95%, and just call it 100% for easy math, and then mix with equal parts water) is shelf stable for years.
Edited by Severian, 23 October 2020 - 10:30 AM.