Cure light wounds (pine pitch)

Pine pitch grows on trees, of course, or at least comes from trees. The clear gum drips like crystal tears, its delicacy against the pine bark strikingly lovely. As it ages, it hardens and dries. If left undisturbed, it will harden into copal, and ultimately can fossilize into amber.

Not for cooking. Probably. Or not much. Although retsina, and I can imagine the sharp medicinal flavour working well in some settings ... and deep in the subsequent pages of a google search, I found a few oddities: pine resin potatoes, and pine resin chocolate. And, oh happy day, these people after my own heart making all sorts of bitters and syrups and shipping them from Colorado.

Pitch can be incorporated into a balm or used alone as an incense. The pitch is also traditionally used in the southwest and Mexico to remove splinters, spines, or glochids. The balm is useful for small cuts or irritations, for soothing rashes, as a barrier cream, and generally for minor insults to the skin. It even makes a pretty reasonable emergency deodorant.

Gather the fresh resin with a stick, because wow it is sticky*. It's also almost overwhelmingly tempting to touch it, because the partly dried droplets are gummy, squishy, stretchy, and generally a source of tactile satisfaction.

So it's good to know that oil will unstick the stickiness - hand sanitiser/rubbing alcohol too, but not quite as well. Oil will also dissolve the resinous gum, making a strongly pine-scented maceration which can then be blended with other ingredients as usual to make various creams and potions. I use a lot of pine balm and I like the foresty smell of it, so when we saw quantities of pitch out in the wild recently, I thought I'd harvest some and figure out how to make my own ... luckily, the internet, and little figuring was required.

Currently I have a big jar of pine pitch oil sitting in the kitchen. With the greenish oil and lumps of pitch slowly dissolving, it looks like something that would be more at home in a potion master's dungeon-cum-office. But one day soon I will turn it into perfectly well-behaved and seemly balm. More to come ...

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*Q. What's brown and sticky? 

A. A stick. 


Cure light wounds specification.