Wormwood, Black Walnut & Clove: A Botanical Guide

Wormwood gave absinthe its name. It also contains thujone, a compound EU law caps at 35 mg/kg in alcoholic drinks made from Artemisia species. That one fact shapes this whole page: it is why this blend is a short course rather than a daily habit, and why the safety section is the longest we have written.

Botanicals: Artemisia absinthium, Juglans nigra, Syzygium aromaticum
Parts used: Leaf and flowering tops; green fruit hull; dried flower bud
Origins: Europe, North America, Indonesia
Per serving: 1,440 mg blend, two capsules. Milled powder, not extract
Formats: 60 vegan capsules, or 60 ml alcohol-free drops
Allergen: Contains walnut (tree nut)

Two things before anything else. This product contains walnut. Walnut is a tree nut and a declarable allergen. If you have a nut allergy of any kind, do not take it. And wormwood contains thujone, a naturally occurring compound with real regulatory limits attached to it — which is why this is a short-term botanical and not something to take continuously. Both points are set out in full below.

01 The three plants

Three botanicals, three plant families, three continents. They are sold together out of long habit, not because they are related to one another in any way. Each is worth taking separately.

Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium)

A perennial herb, Artemisia absinthium L., in the family Asteraceae — daisies and sunflowers, along with chamomile, mugwort, ragweed, echinacea and yarrow. That family membership matters for allergy, and the safety section returns to it.

The plant reaches roughly a metre, sometimes taller. Deeply divided silvery-grey leaves under fine silky hairs; small, dull-yellow, button-like flower heads in loose sprays in late summer. Crush any part of it and the smell is unmistakable. The part used is the aerial part — leaf and flowering tops, Absinthii herba in pharmacopoeial terms.

Wormwood is native to temperate Europe, North Africa and western Asia, and has naturalised widely elsewhere, including much of North America. It is a coloniser of dry, poor, open ground: roadsides, waste ground, field margins, rubble, stony banks. Drought and thin soil suit it. Supply comes both from cultivated stands, particularly in eastern and southern Europe, and from wild-gathered plants.

Absinthe takes its name directly from absinthium. Vermouth is the German Wermut — wormwood — run through French.

Both are naming facts, and nothing more is meant by mentioning them.

Black walnut (Juglans nigra)

A large deciduous tree, Juglans nigra L., family Juglandaceae — walnuts and hickories. Mature trees reach 30 metres or more, with dark, deeply furrowed bark and long pinnate leaves of many narrow leaflets. The fruit is a round green drupe about the size of a tennis ball. Inside the thick green husk sits a very hard ridged nutshell, and inside that the kernel.

It is native to eastern and central North America, from southern Ontario down through the eastern and midwestern United States, growing in rich bottomland woods and along river valleys. It is also planted for timber and nuts, including in parts of Europe. It is not the European or Persian walnut, Juglans regia, which is the walnut sold as food in the UK.

In supplements the part conventionally used is the green outer hull of the unripe fruit rather than the kernel. That distinction changes nothing about the allergen: the material is walnut and is treated as a tree nut. Our label states the ingredient as black walnut powder. Check the pack for the current full specification.

Clove (Syzygium aromaticum)

An evergreen tree, Syzygium aromaticum (L.) Merr. & L.M. Perry, family Myrtaceae, alongside myrtle, eucalyptus and allspice. It grows to around 10–20 metres, with glossy leathery leaves and clusters of small flower buds at the branch tips.

The part used is the dried, unopened flower bud, picked just before it opens and dried until it turns reddish-brown. A nail with a rounded head — which is where the English name comes from, via the French clou.

Clove is native to the Maluku Islands of eastern Indonesia, the old Spice Islands. Commercial cultivation now runs across the humid tropics: principally Indonesia, Madagascar, Tanzania — including Zanzibar and Pemba — Sri Lanka, India and Brazil. Unlike wormwood, clove is a plantation crop. Essentially all commercial supply is cultivated rather than wild-gathered.

02 What's in our product

Two formats: capsules and alcohol-free liquid drops. The composition figures below are for the capsules, where the per-serving quantity is stated on the label. For the drops, the label is the reference.

Whole powder, not a concentrated extract

Plenty of botanical supplements, several of ours included, use a concentrated extract described by a ratio such as 10:1. This blend is not one of them, and the difference is easy to misread on a shelf.

A 10:1 ratio describes how much dried raw plant went into a given weight of finished extract. Ten parts of dried herb are processed down to one part of extract, so 10 kg of dried herb yields 1 kg of 10:1 extract powder, and a 900 mg serving of that extract is described as equivalent to 900 × 10 = 9,000 mg of whole dried herb.

Our capsules do not work that way. They contain the milled dried botanicals themselves — black walnut powder, clove powder and wormwood powder. No concentration step, no ratio to apply.

The 1,440 mg blend in a two-capsule serving is 1,440 mg of dried plant material. Read it literally.

None of this is a quality judgement either way. Powder and extract are different manufacturing choices, not better and worse ones. But a "10:1" figure and a plain powder figure are not the same unit and cannot be set side by side.

Capsules — composition

Botanicals: Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium), black walnut (Juglans nigra), clove (Syzygium aromaticum)
Form of the botanicals: Milled dried plant powder. Not a concentrated extract; no extract ratio applies
Per serving (two capsules): 1,440 mg botanical blend of black walnut powder, clove powder and wormwood powder
Per capsule: 720 mg of the blend
Capsule shell: Plant-derived cellulose. No gelatin, no animal-derived ingredients
Suitable for vegans: Yes
Allergens: Contains walnut (tree nut). Free from gluten, dairy and soy
Additives: Non-GMO; free from artificial additives
Bottle count: 60 capsules
How long a bottle lasts: 30 days at two capsules daily — a one-month supply. See the duration guidance in the safety section before planning repeat bottles
Manufacture and testing: Made in the UK under GMP standards; every batch lab tested for purity and consistency
Dispatch: From the UK

Liquid drops — composition

Botanicals: The same three: wormwood, black walnut and clove, in liquid form
Base: Vegetable glycerin. Alcohol-free — no ethanol tincture base
Bottle size: 60 ml, supplied with a dropper
Suitable for vegans: Yes
Allergens: Contains walnut (tree nut). Free from gluten, dairy and soy
Additives: Non-GMO; free from artificial colours, flavours and unnecessary fillers
Per-serving quantities: See the product label. The drops are a different format with a different serving size from the capsules, so we do not restate capsule figures here
Manufacture and testing: Made in the UK under GMP standards; every batch lab tested

03 How to take it

Capsules

The label is short. Take two capsules daily, preferably with a meal and water. Do not exceed the recommended amount.

Timing. The label does not specify a time of day. Picking the same meal each day makes the habit easier to keep and easier to stop.
With or without food. The label says preferably with a meal. Bitter and tannin-rich plant material is generally more comfortable taken with food than on an empty stomach.
Together or split. Two capsules is the daily serving. Whether you take both at one meal or one at each of two meals, the daily total stays at two.
Swallow whole, with a full glass of water.
Do not exceed the labelled serving. This point carries more weight here than on most of our products, for the thujone reasons set out below.
Not for prolonged continuous use. Keep to short periods of use with regular breaks. See the safety section.

Drops

Use as directed on the label and do not exceed the recommended amount. The drops carry their own serving instruction. Follow it. Do not convert from the capsule figure or estimate an equivalent.

Measuring. Squeeze the bulb, draw liquid into the pipette and count the drops. Glycerin is viscous, so drops form slowly; hold the dropper vertical and let each one fall rather than shaking it out.
Taking them. Drops can be taken directly, or stirred into a small glass of water or juice. Diluting is the usual choice, for reasons the taste section makes clear.
Hygiene. Do not let the pipette touch your mouth, then return it to the bottle. Return it clean.
Not for prolonged continuous use, exactly as with the capsules.

Storage. Keep both formats tightly closed in a cool, dry place, out of direct sunlight. Not above a hob, not on a windowsill, not in a steamy bathroom cabinet — heat, light and humidity are what degrade dried plant material and glycerin-based liquids. Keep out of the sight and reach of children; the walnut allergen and the wormwood content both make this important. Check the best-before date on the pack, and note the after-opening period on the drops if one is shown.

04 Taste and format

This is not a pleasant-tasting blend. The capsule format exists largely because of that.

Wormwood is among the most bitter plants in common use — bitter in a lingering, resinous, medicinal way rather than a coffee-like way, with a dry herbal aroma somewhere between sage and hay. That bitterness is the plant's defining sensory feature, and the reason it named absinthe and vermouth.

Black walnut hull is astringent and tannic. Drying, mouth-puckering, like over-brewed black tea or unripe fruit skin, with a woody, faintly inky note. The powder is dark brown.

Clove is the one recognisable note: warm, sweet, pungent, intensely aromatic, with the numbing tingle familiar from the spice rack and from dental products. It dominates the smell of the blend even where it does not dominate the taste.

Capsules sidestep almost all of this. The cellulose shell does not dissolve until it is past the palate, so a swallowed capsule tastes of nothing much. You will smell clove when you open the bottle. Split a capsule open and you get the full bitter-astringent-aromatic effect, which is why most people do not.

Drops put the taste back. The vegetable glycerin base is mildly sweet and syrupy and softens the edges a little, but it does not hide wormwood — nothing really does. Taken neat, the sequence most people describe is clove first, then a hard bitterness, then a dry astringent finish that lingers. In a glass of water or juice it is far more manageable. Something with body, apple or orange juice, masks it better than water.

Choose capsules if taste is the deciding factor. Choose drops if you dislike swallowing capsules or want the flexibility of a measured liquid. Our general comparison of the two formats is on the capsules or drops page. Batch-to-batch variation in colour, aroma and intensity is normal for plant material and reflects harvest and growing conditions, not a fault.

05 Safety, cautions and interactions

Read this section before you buy. It is longer than on our other guides for good reason. Two of these three botanicals carry specific, well-documented cautions, and one of them is a major allergen.

Walnut allergy — absolute

This product contains walnut, which is a tree nut and one of the 14 allergens that must be declared under UK food law. Do not take it if you have a tree-nut allergy, a walnut allergy, or any reaction to nuts you have not had properly assessed. Allergy to one tree nut is frequently accompanied by reactivity to others, and members of the Juglandaceae family — walnut, pecan, hickory — cross-react particularly often. If you carry an adrenaline auto-injector, this product is not for you.

If you are unsure whether a past reaction was an allergy, ask your GP before taking any walnut-containing supplement — not after.

Stop immediately and seek urgent medical help if you develop signs of a severe allergic reaction: rash or hives, swelling of the face, lips, tongue or throat, wheezing, or difficulty breathing.

Daisy-family allergy

Wormwood is in the Asteraceae (Compositae) family. The EMA herbal monograph position for wormwood lists hypersensitivity to the plant or to other Asteraceae as a contraindication. If you react to mugwort, ragweed, chamomile, feverfew, yarrow, echinacea, marigold or arnica, avoid this product.

Thujone — what the limits actually are

This is the point people most often miss, so here are the figures.

Wormwood naturally contains thujone, which occurs as a variable mixture of α- and β-thujone. It is also found in sage, tansy, cedar leaf, thyme and rosemary, in highly variable amounts. According to the EMA's Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products, α-thujone acts on the GABA-gated chloride channel, and the most prominent sign of acute intoxication in animal studies is epileptiform convulsion. The EU Scientific Committee on Food concluded in 2002 that humans are at least as sensitive to thujone neurotoxicity as experimental animals.

Because of this, thujone is regulated rather than left open:

Thujone is not authorised as a flavouring substance in its own right in the EU under Regulation (EC) No 1334/2008 — it is only permitted as a natural constituent carried over from plants such as wormwood and sage.
That regulation sets maximum levels of 35 mg/kg in alcoholic beverages produced from Artemisia species, 10 mg/kg in other alcoholic beverages, and 0.5 mg/kg in non-alcoholic beverages produced from Artemisia species.
The Council of Europe allocated a tolerable daily intake for thujone of 10 µg per kg of body weight per day.
For herbal medicinal products, the EMA monograph for wormwood set a maximum daily thujone intake of 3 mg per person, for a maximum duration of two weeks. The EMA's 2012 public statement on thujone concluded that exposures in the range of roughly 3–7 mg per day do not pose special concerns, that higher amounts need case-by-case assessment, and that the thujone content of a preparation must be specified for every batch.
The EMA also noted that average dietary thujone intake in the UK and France is already estimated at somewhere around 0.3–1 mg per person per day, before any supplement is added.

Two conclusions follow. First, this is a short-course botanical, not a daily staple — the entire regulatory framework around thujone is built on limited-duration exposure. Second, do not exceed the labelled serving, and do not stack this product with other wormwood, sage or tansy preparations at the same time, because thujone intake adds up across sources.

Epilepsy and seizure disorders — do not take

Given thujone's action on GABA-A signalling and the convulsions reported in animal studies and in human intoxications with thujone-rich essential oils, do not take this product if you have epilepsy, a seizure disorder, or any history of seizures, or if you take anti-epileptic medication. This applies whether or not your condition is currently well controlled. The same caution applies if you have porphyria: the EMA public statement notes evidence that thujone may be porphyrinogenic.

The EMA also recorded that in one human study a single thujone dose in the region of 17–20 mg produced effects of "borderline relevance" on attention — relevant mainly to driving and operating machinery. That is far above what a labelled serving of a plant-powder supplement would deliver, but it is the reason not to freelance with the dose.

Pregnancy and breastfeeding — do not take

Do not take this product if you are pregnant, may be pregnant, are trying to conceive, or are breastfeeding. The EMA's public statement on thujone is explicit that there are no preclinical or clinical studies allowing a reliable assessment of exposure in sensitive groups such as pregnant women and children, and that use in these groups should be minimised. Separately, the EMA position on clove oil is that safety in pregnancy and lactation has not been established and use is not recommended. In the absence of data, avoidance is the appropriate course — this is stated on our own label too.

Children and adolescents — do not give

This is an adult product. The EMA position is that wormwood herb medicines should be used in adults only, and its clove oil monograph states that use in children and adolescents under 18 has not been established due to lack of adequate data. Add the tree-nut allergen and there is no scenario in which this belongs in a child's hands. Keep it out of sight and reach.

Liver, gallbladder and digestive conditions

The EMA contraindications recorded for wormwood preparations include bile duct obstruction, cholangitis and liver disease. Wormwood has also been reported as contraindicated where there is gastric hyperacidity or intestinal ulceration. Separately, black walnut hull is rich in tannins, and high sustained tannin intake is a recognised cause of stomach upset, with concerns raised in the literature about liver and kidney burden at high intakes over time.

So: do not take this product if you have gallstones, bile duct problems, cholangitis, hepatitis or any other liver condition, or an active stomach or duodenal ulcer, unless your doctor has specifically said it is fine.

Bleeding, clotting and anticoagulant medicines

Clove's principal aromatic constituent, eugenol, has been reported to reduce platelet aggregation, and drug-interaction references list a clove–warfarin interaction on that basis. The evidence concerns concentrated clove preparations rather than culinary quantities, and it is not strong, but the direction of effect is consistent enough to act on.

Do not take this product alongside anticoagulant or antiplatelet medicines — warfarin, apixaban, rivaroxaban, edoxaban, dabigatran, clopidogrel, or aspirin taken for cardiovascular protection — without speaking to your prescriber or pharmacist first. The same caution applies if you have a bleeding disorder, or bruise or bleed easily.

Before surgery

Stop taking this product at least two weeks before any planned surgery, dental extraction or procedure involving bleeding risk, and tell your surgeon, dentist and anaesthetist that you have been taking it. Mention all three botanicals by name. Anaesthetists ask about supplements routinely, and the relevant concerns here are bleeding tendency, blood glucose and seizure threshold.

Other medicines and supplements

Diabetes medicines. Clove has been reported to affect blood glucose. If you take insulin, metformin, a sulfonylurea or any other glucose-lowering medicine, speak to your diabetes team first and monitor more closely if you proceed.
Iron supplements. Tannins bind non-haem iron in the gut and reduce its absorption. If you take iron, leave a couple of hours between it and this product.
Any prescription medicine at all. The interaction profile of this blend is not fully characterised — there is no EU herbal monograph for Juglans nigra, and the HMPC did not adopt a monograph for clove buds. Uncertainty is a reason to check, not a reason to assume it is fine.
Other botanical supplements. Check whether anything else you take contains wormwood, sage, tansy, cedar leaf or clove, because thujone and eugenol intake adds together across products.

Duration of use — and why this is not an open-ended supplement

This product is not intended for prolonged continuous use. Keep to short, defined periods with regular breaks off it, exactly as the label says. For reference, the EMA duration limits for the two relevant botanicals are short: two weeks for wormwood herb preparations, and not more than one week for clove oil. We are not equating our food supplement with those medicinal preparations, and our label serving is the one to follow — but the pattern in the regulatory guidance is consistent and worth respecting. Do not treat repeat bottles as a default. If you find yourself wanting to take something continuously, that is a conversation to have with your GP.

What this page is not

You will find multi-week, escalating-dose regimens built around these three botanicals circulating widely online — the schedules commonly attributed to Hulda Clark are the best known of them. This page is not one of those, and we do not publish, endorse, supply or recommend any such regimen. Those schedules typically call for amounts well above our labelled serving, taken for far longer than the duration guidance above, and they sit outside anything supported by the regulatory sources cited on this page.

Our position is simple: follow the label on the pack you have bought. Two capsules daily with a meal, or the stated drop serving, for a short period, with breaks. Nothing on this page is an instruction to do anything else, and anything you read elsewhere that conflicts with our label is not our guidance.

State of the evidence

We would rather be straight about where the data runs out. There is a European Union herbal monograph and a dedicated EMA public statement covering wormwood and thujone, so that part is comparatively well characterised. For clove, the HMPC assessed Syzygium aromaticum and did not adopt a monograph for the flower buds; the only EU monograph is for clove essential oil in dental and oromucosal use, which is a different preparation and a different route. For black walnut, Juglans nigra, there is no EU herbal monograph at all — the EMA monograph in this family covers Juglans regia leaf, a different species used externally. Published human safety data on black walnut hull preparations is limited. Where the evidence is thin, the sensible response is caution and a conversation with your pharmacist, not confidence.

Side effects and when to stop

Stop taking it and seek medical advice if you develop stomach pain or persistent nausea, vomiting or diarrhoea, dizziness, headache, unusual bruising or bleeding, yellowing of the skin or eyes, dark urine, any twitching or convulsive symptom, or anything else that concerns you. Seek urgent help for signs of a severe allergic reaction, or for any seizure.

For context on why overdosing concentrated clove preparations is taken seriously: the EMA clove oil monograph records that ingestion of 5–10 ml of clove essential oil by children under two produced life-threatening conditions, with reported features including central nervous system depression, deteriorating liver function, seizures and low blood glucose. That concerns the concentrated essential oil, not dried clove buds, and it is not a description of this product — but it is the clearest available illustration of why labelled servings exist and why this belongs out of children's reach.

When to speak to a pharmacist

Community pharmacists are free to talk to, need no appointment, and can check your full medicines list against a supplement in a few minutes. Take the pack with you, or a photograph of the label — the ingredient list and the milligram figure are what they will want to see. It is worth doing before you start if you take any prescription medicine at all, if you have any liver, gallbladder, stomach or neurological condition, if you have any nut allergy history whatsoever, if you are over 65, if you take several medicines at once, or if you have a procedure coming up.

Sources consulted for this section: the EMA Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products public statement on herbal medicinal products containing thujone (EMA/HMPC/732886/2010 Rev. 1); the EMA herbal monograph and assessment material for Artemisia absinthium L., herba; the EMA community herbal monograph for Syzygium aromaticum floris aetheroleum (clove oil) and the EMA page for Caryophylli flos recording that no monograph was adopted; the EMA page for Juglandis folium, Juglans regia L., folium; the EU Scientific Committee on Food opinion on thujone (2002); Regulation (EC) No 1334/2008 on flavourings; and published drug-interaction summaries for clove and eugenol. Where sources disagree or data is absent, we have said so rather than filled the gap.

06 Where to find it

Two formats, the same three botanicals. Capsules: 1,440 mg of blended wormwood, black walnut and clove powder per two-capsule serving, 60 vegan capsules to a bottle. Drops: a 60 ml alcohol-free, glycerin-based liquid with a dropper. Both made in the UK to GMP standards and batch lab tested. Both contain walnut.

Wormwood, Black Walnut & Clove Capsules

Wormwood, Black Walnut & Clove Liquid Drops

More background reading is on our botanical guides index, and the format comparison is on the capsules or drops page.

UK Standard delivery: Free on orders of £28 or more; otherwise £2.99
UK Express delivery: £5.99; free on orders of £48 or more
Dispatch: Within 1–2 business days
Typical delivery time: 1–4 business days, by Royal Mail or Amazon Logistics
Returns: 30 days from receipt to request a return. Item must be unopened, untampered, in its original packaging, with proof of purchase. Email hello@probotanics.co.uk to start — an accepted return receives a return shipping label and instructions. Items sent back without requesting a return first are not accepted. For damaged, defective or incorrect items, contact us immediately on receipt.
Questions: hello@probotanics.co.uk

ProBotanics Ltd is a UK company, number 13685177, with its registered office at 86-90 Paul Street, London, EC2A 4NE. The company was incorporated on 18 October 2021 as Peak Supplements Ltd and renamed ProBotanics Ltd on 28 November 2023, when the brand moved away from its original sports and bodybuilding range to single-botanical food supplements.

This is a food supplement, not a medicine. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any medical condition, and it is not a substitute for a varied and balanced diet or a healthy lifestyle. Contains walnut. Not for use during pregnancy or breastfeeding. If you are pregnant, breastfeeding, taking any medication or under medical care, speak to your doctor or pharmacist before use. Keep out of the sight and reach of children.