A field guide

    Without extracts.

    The functional shot is built on extracts. A whole-plant serve is built on the plant. The difference is worth understanding.

    The functional shot

    Small bottle, big label.

    The functional shot is built on extracts: a small volume of liquid carrying one or two named compounds at a declared level — ginger extract, turmeric extract, a standardised percentage of this or that.

    It is a format built for the label. The compound is the product; the plant is its source, somewhere further back.

    What an extract leaves behind

    One compound is not a plant.

    To standardise one compound, an extract must leave the rest of the plant behind: the fibres, the minor acids, the pigments and aromatics, and the structure that held them together.

    A ginger root contains hundreds of identified compounds. A standardised ginger extract declares one. The others — including many that shape flavour — are not in the bottle.

    That is not a criticism of extracts, which have their uses. It is simply what they are.

    The whole-plant serve

    A different way to build a drink.

    A whole-plant serve starts from the other end. The raw material — fruit, leaf, flower, root — is prepared so that more of its natural composition carries through to the finished liquid.

    The result cannot declare a fixed level of a single compound, because a plant is not fixed: it varies with the season, the soil and the landscape. What it can do is name the plant, name the place, and measure what the finished liquid actually contains.

    Variation, recorded honestly, is more informative than a standardised number.

    Flavour as evidence

    You can taste the difference.

    Extract-based drinks tend to taste of their flavouring, because the plant's own aromatics were lost with everything else the extract left behind.

    A whole-plant drink tastes of the plant — sometimes brightly, sometimes challengingly, always specifically. That specificity is the composition making itself known.

    How Ebbor works

    No extracts, no isolates.

    Every Ebbor edition is made in Somerset from whole plants. We do not use isolated extracts, and we do not standardise any single compound.

    Each finished edition is independently analysed, and the full record — plants, places and measured composition — travels with it in the Plant Passport.

    500ml · 20 serves · 0.0% alcohol.

    Questions

    What is a functional shot made from?
    Usually extracts: one or two named compounds drawn from a plant and standardised to a declared level, in a small volume of liquid. The rest of the plant is left behind.
    How is a whole-plant serve different?
    It is made from the raw material itself, prepared so more of the plant's natural composition carries through. It names the plant and place, and measures the finished liquid rather than declaring one standardised compound.
    Why don't whole-plant drinks declare a fixed compound level?
    Because a plant's composition varies with season, soil and landscape. Ebbor records that variation honestly: each finished edition is independently analysed and the results published in its Plant Passport.
    Does Ebbor use extracts?
    No. Ebbor editions are made from whole plants, with no isolated extracts and no standardised compounds.
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