At the Casalvento Laboratories we have a custom production of absolute and concretes adjacent to the Casalvento distillery. Absolutes are highly concentrated aromatic extracts obtained through solvent extraction.
Completely different from an essential oil, they have a much deeper and more natural aromatic profile.
Simply put: the botanical is macerated in the extraction solvent, which enriches it with everything that can be dissolved in it. This is the fundamental concept of alchemy: SIMILIA SIMILIBUS SULVUNTUR. The solvent is then recovered, leaving in the container what was extracted from the starting matrix: the absolute (also called absolute essence).
The process is only apparently simple: plant matrices are different from each other, contain different active ingredients, and solvents often have unpredictable effects on them.
Which solvent should be used? With which technique? And here we need culture, experience, and technological innovation!
At Casalvento Laboratories, we custom produce absolutes from botanical such as: pale iris, lavender flower, broom, rosemary, hyrax, wheat, barley, inula, sesame, damask rose, helichrysum, hops, seaweed, juniper berry, oak moss, and more. We also specialize in the production of wood absolutes such as juniper wood, oak, cherry, lavender wood, and apricot.
We have also produced specialty absolutes: white truffle, bottarga, black tea, caviar, vanilla, balsamic vinegar, vinsanto, and horse mane.
In addition to our standard offerings, we also work on commission, customizing the finished product to meet our clients’ needs, leveraging our production flexibility
An absolute is therefore the result of a special liquid-liquid or solid-liquid extraction process in which the matrix to be extracted releases all its solvent elements into the solvent used. Many unwanted molecules can interfere with the process… but we’ll talk about that in another article in this “To learn more” section.