Bitter Melon Tincture & Alcohol-Free Extract

Bitter Melon (Momordica charantia), also called bitter gourd or karela, is a slender climbing annual of the gourd family, Cucurbitaceae, native to tropical Africa and Asia and grown as a vegetable from India and China to the Caribbean and Florida. The vine climbs 2 to 5 meters by tendrils, with deeply lobed, five- to seven-fingered leaves and small yellow flowers. The fruit is oblong, 5 to 25 centimeters long, pointed at both ends, and covered in warty ridges; it is picked green and intensely bitter, and if left on the vine turns orange and splits open to show seeds coated in sticky scarlet pulp. We extract the dried fruit.