Past to Present Apothecary

Past to Present Apothecary Sharing information on herbalism, holistic alternatives, handcrafted herbal products, herbal garden tips and more.
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Keeping past techniques alive through present times. My name is Kat Smith and I created Past to Present Apothecary LLC to help others looking for alternative health care. I learned shortly after my daughter was diagnosed with ADHD that not all pharmaceutical medications are beneficial. I started to research herbal remedies and was dumfounded. For thousands of years we survived strictly off of our

land. There are a number of herbal tinctures and infusions that can help calm the mind and assist with focus. Not to mention the many benefits from mushrooms like lions mane and cordyceps. Its with this research that I created my brand. I want to be able to share the information with others.

🌙🥛Moon Milk: This recipe is perfect for anyone who has been feeling run down and struggling with extra stress. Get a ful...
05/02/2026

🌙🥛Moon Milk: This recipe is perfect for anyone who has been feeling run down and struggling with extra stress. Get a full night's sleep and help your body recover from every day exposures.

🗒Ingredients:
1 cup milk of choice
½ tsp ground nutmeg
½ tsp cinnamon powder
¼-½ tsp ashwagandha powder
½ tsp-1 tsp raw honey
Optional add-ins
¼ tsp optional mushroom powder (chaga or reishi)
½ tsp-1tsp lavender syrup

🗒Directions
Heat up milk on stove top over med-low head. Once the mixture is steaming, remove from heat and add dry ingredients. Stir well and cover for 5-10 min. Remove cover and add in honey and syrup if using. Stir and enjoy.

🌙🥛Moon milk is most known in Ayurvedic medicine and helps promote relaxation, immune support, and sleep support. This is a delicious way to prepare for a good night's rest.

Benefits of ingredients:
🪾Ashwagandha is a wonderful adaptogen that aids in recovery after illness, and adapts to the body’s different stressors.
🌰 Nutmeg aids in sleep and eases pain.
🍮 ️Cinnamon is a wonderful anti-inflammatory and helps regulate blood sugar.
✨️Optional:
🍄Chaga mushroom is antioxidant, has anti tumor activity, and is Immunomodulating. It has an earthy, woody, slight bitter taste.
🍄Reishi mushroom regulates blood sugars and cholesterol levels. It also relieves pain and activates immune function. This has a bitter, earthy taste that can be strong to some.

What are some of your favorite ways to help get a full night's rest?

🌿🌼Calendula, Calendula officinalis 🌼A brilliant orange annual flower that gets to 2 ft in height. Native to Europe, cale...
04/29/2026

🌿🌼Calendula, Calendula officinalis

🌼A brilliant orange annual flower that gets to 2 ft in height. Native to Europe, calendula grows well from seed and thrives in most types of soil. The flowers begin to open in early summer when they are harvested and dried for medicinal and cosmetic products.

🍶For herbal remedies calendula can be utilized both internally and externally. You can make tea infusions, tinctures, infused topical oils, salves, ointments, creams, and more. Such a versatile flower.

⛑️Skin is primarily what calendula is great for. Aiding with wounds, bug bites, psoriasis, eczema, ringworm, sunburn, athlete’s foot and more. The herb acts as an astringent toward capillaries, shrinking them down, helping to staunch bleeding, reduce varicose veins, and lessen inflammation.

⛑️Calendula is also good for digestive disorders such as peptic ulcers, acid reflux, and colitis. Taken as a tea infusion 3x a day it has shown to heal and repair the gut.

✨️Key actions:
-Astringent
-Detoxifying
-Antimicrobial
-Antifungal
-Wound healing
-Anti-inflammatory

✨️Key constituents:
-Resins
-Bitter glycosides
-Volatile oils
-Mucilage
-Triterpenes

⁉️What are some of your favorite ways to use calendula flowers? I keep a salve on hand for bug bites, sunburns, and rashes. It works wonders.

04/28/2026

I have been busy! We all have been busy. Sometimes it makes it easy to lose ourselves. Lose sight of the dream.

Keep your head held high, and continue on, don't forget the purpose of it all.

🌶Cayenne Pepper, (Capsicum annuum)🌎Originating in Central and South America, the cayenne pepper plant is a perennial shr...
04/28/2026

🌶Cayenne Pepper, (Capsicum annuum)

🌎Originating in Central and South America, the cayenne pepper plant is a perennial shrub growing to 18”-24” in height. The peppers, which are the fruit of the shrub, grow to be around 4”-6” in length and turn vibrant red. These hot peppers have been used for thousands of years in culinary dishes and in herbal remedies. Cayenne is now cultivated all around the world.

🌶Cayenne is a known as a catalyst. 📝Definition of catalyst: “A substance that enables a chemical reaction to proceed at a usually faster rate…” Merriam-Webster dictionary
Catalyst herbs are usually aromatic, warming, stimulating, and a little goes a long way.

✨️Key actions of cayenne include:
-Circulatory Stimulant
-Relieves muscle spasms
-Antiseptic (slows or stops growth of microorganisms)
-Increases blood flow
-Anelgesic (pain reliever)
-Staunch bleeding
-Anti-inflammatory

🔑 Key Constituents:
-Capsaicin (up to 1.5%)
-Flavonoids
-Volition oils
-Carotenoids

🩸Helping to stimulate blood flow, Cayenne provides better circulation to the hands, feet, and internal organs. It also helps support cardiovascular health. The antimicrobial properties make it valuable for gut health when experiencing gastroenteritis or dysentery. It also helps relieve gas and colic by stimulating gastric juices.

⛑️For first aid, the powder can be used to stop bleeding. It also serves as a wonderful analgesic, relieving pain associated with arthritis. You can use an infused cayenne oil to help with “cold” rheumatic limbs, bringing circulation to the area and relieving discomfort.

🫙🫖Cayenne can be utilized in tinctures, tea infusions, oil infusions, salves, and ointments. Cayenne is overall safe to use in cooking and herbal remedies, just remember a little goes a long way.

⚠️For some the heat is intense, be mindful your first time using it.

📸: Free P*k

Lemon balm oil infusion ⛑️I go on to make a lip balm with this oil infusion. Lemon balm is anti-viral, helping with cold...
04/26/2026

Lemon balm oil infusion

⛑️I go on to make a lip balm with this oil infusion. Lemon balm is anti-viral, helping with cold sores. It is also antimicrobial which helps with inflammation and prevents possible infection from severely chapped lips.

🌿Ingredients:
½ to 1 cup dried lemon balm
1 to 2 cup carrier oil of choice (I use unrefined sweet almond oil)
Half-pint OR Pint mason jar

📜☀️Directions for solar infusion:
-Add your dried herbs to the mason jar size of choice. If using a half-pint you will add ½ cup lemon balm if using a pint you will add 1 cup.

-Pour in carrier oil of choice- ensure you cover herbs and fill the jar up leaving ¼ in. space between the lid and oil.

-Ensure herbs are completely submerged. I recommend placing a piece of parchment first then placing the lid and ring. Close jar hand tight, and mix lightly.

-Place in a window and let it sit for 2-4 weeks. Shake daily.

-Once done infusing strain oil and store in a clean amber glass jar or add to salve/lotion/ointment recipe.

📜🔥Directions for heat infusion:
-You will need a double boiler for this. If you don't have one, look up how to create one from a sauce pan and glass bowl.

-Put enough water in the base pan, but not so much that it touches the top pan.

- Add your herbs and oil in the top pan.

-Turn heat on medium-low until you have a slow boil and cover to simmer for 2-3 hrs.

-You will add water if it gets too low.

-Once done remove from heat and allow to cool.

-Strain oil from herbs and store oil in a clean amber glass jar, or go on to use in a salve/lotion/ointment recipe.

✨ ️ Depending on the carrier oil you choose, and the infusion method determines shelf life. These are the main factors that go into proper storage, but other things contribute as well. If you aren't sure, feel free to ask!

🪔This oil is safe for all ages and skin types. Depending on allergies you may have to use an oil that doesn't come from nuts. Always if there is a reaction, discontinue use immediately and wash with soap and water. I recommend using this to make salves/balms.

🌿🫐Elderberry syrup⚠️Elderberries contain cyanogenic glycosides. (When metabolized this turns to cyanide) By cooking prop...
04/23/2026

🌿🫐Elderberry syrup

⚠️Elderberries contain cyanogenic glycosides. (When metabolized this turns to cyanide) By cooking properly this toxin is broken down and the berries are safe to use in syrups, jams, jellies, and so on.

🫙Elderberry syrup

🌿Ingredients:
1 cup dried/ripe elderberries
4 cups filtered water
1-2 inch fresh ginger sliced up
1 small lemon for juice
1 cup raw honey

📋Directions:
Mix together and bring to a boil. Put on med/low and simmer for 45 min. Strain into heat resistant bowl through a mesh strainer and let cool to room temperature. Add honey and the lemon juice. Mix well and keep refrigerated. Cooking the berries long enough is the most important part.

🥄🫖You can take this a tablespoon at a time by itself, add to a drink, or go on to make fruit gummies to help your kids enjoy a good immune boost. Great for back to school season, and cold/flu season.

🫐Elderberries

✨️Key constituents:
-Flavonoids
-Anthocyanins
-Lectins
-Vitamins A&C

✨️Key Actions:
-Diuretic
-Antiviral
-Anti-inflammatory

ℹ️There have been studies showing how effective elderberry is at treating influenza. After given elderberry extract, the illness cleared up within 2 days, as opposed to 6 or so with the placebo.

04/23/2026

Throwback to when I made my elderberry syrup this past winter. Such a beautiful, rich syrup. A great one to help push through those cold/flu seasons and keep the immune system strong.

I made a separate post with the recipe and information about elderberries and the syrup. If you have any questions or want to learn more comment below.

⚠️Always cook elderberries for a minimum of 30 minutes on low/med heat to rid the cyanogenic glycosides that we go on to metabolize into cyanide.

My sage is in bloom and what a beauty!!! Pictures cannot grasp the deep purple they hold. Gorgeous 😍!
04/21/2026

My sage is in bloom and what a beauty!!! Pictures cannot grasp the deep purple they hold. Gorgeous 😍!

04/20/2026

Lets make a salve!

This is a beautiful salve made of Unrefined sweet almond oil infused with
Comfrey&Lavender
Then combined with organic beeswax.

A wonderful topical salve to aid with dry/cracked skin, rashes, bruises, inflammation/swelling, Sprains, and more.

Comfrey is a powerful herb that heals fast. Lavender aids with inflammation and soothes irritated skin.

Mother nature is full of healing qualities. ✨️

I love this herb drying rack. Easy storage, holds A LOT of herbs, and affordable options. This one came with some herb c...
04/19/2026

I love this herb drying rack. Easy storage, holds A LOT of herbs, and affordable options. This one came with some herb cutters and a storage bag.

I was getting frustrated trying to dry loose herbs and flowers on a screen, and frankly there is no room in my house to lay down another thing. I started to see these being used and when this season started I got one.

I haven't found the best place to put it up inside yet. So I brought it outside for the sun and wind to do the job! So far its worked wonders.

🌿So far I have harvested:
Sage
Oregano
Thyme
Lemon balm
Apple mint
Chocolate mint

What are your favorite herbs to dry?

Address

Conway, AR

Telephone

+15014999880

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