I don't understand why wait time spend alcohol, it's a relatively rare and rather expensive resources and it seems required for many potions, so I don't understand this:
- Firstly the logic point of view, if I wanderer during the same amount of time I don't lost the precious resource, so there's no logic here.
- Secondly the gameplay design, so what, penalize the wait time utility mechanism? What's the point to do that? this wait mechanism is here for many good reasons and this rule just make it weird and a slightly frustrating element. Or is it a way to push grinding? In that cas, my point of view, lame mechanism, I don't play MMO for good reasons.

When you wait and miss bombs or potions you will automatically use alcohol to get new potions and bombs.

Sigh thank you, should have make a question thread.

That was very unclear for me even more after to have quote that fast travel was allowing wait time without any cost.

Your explanation brings another point, there's a glitch not allowing craft more bombs even when you have 0/2. With this wait mechanism you explained it makes more minor this glitch.

You can only carry one of each bomb and potion kind. Because of that and since these placeholders only will be refilled once you wait, you cannot craft new ones even when you have 0/2.

Well actually there is plenty of alcohol lying around for free - I think I had a couple 99x stacks of basic alcohol.

You write it as it's crystal clear but I don't think it is, it's perhaps explained in the tutorial but game messages should have been cleaner. It's about ingredients when you meditate, and it's about having already x for something you have 0/2. Perhaps French translations are wrong. During chapter 1? Probably not.

In the English version when you wait you get a message saying "Strong alcohol was used to replenish alchemy items". However, it is possible that the French version is not clear enough.

Alchemy items, sorry that's misguiding for me, just say bombs and potions. :-) Ok I don't remember what's the word used for items in French.

The crafting message is also bizarre in my opinion.

But ok now I know I don't care argue about this, could be my plain fault to not have understood well those messages. :-)

No problem! I hope that you found the answer you were looking for. :-)

Lol for sure now I know how it works, thank you. :=)

So does this mean that I have to gather the required contents for bombs, oils etc. only one time to "unlock" the specific alchemic thingy and from then on everything gets refilled just with alcohol?

Yep, that's exactly what happens :)
It does make herb collecting rather pointless later on, sadly, but it certainly is less hassle for those who never liked that part of "hunting and collecting" to begin with...
Of course, ingredients that you have to craft yourself, like Rubedo, Albedo etc don't replenish (in case that wasn't obvious).

Coming off of Witcher 1 and 2, this mechanic threw me at first, too. I agree that it isn't well explained, although I may have missed a tutorial message or two.

I've assumed that Geralt's potions are partially infusions, and he just leaves the solid material in the bottle and refills it with alcohol. I do the same with vodka and a vanilla bean pod. I don't have an explanation for the bombs, though! :)

Yes, I actually still prefer the potion making mechanic from TW1, where the usage of potions is merely limited by toxicity, the crafting by the amount of ingredients as well as the availability of a fireplace. I also liked the "learn about ingredients" (via books etc) first, since that was a nice and fun pursuit in and of itself.
I'm not really sure why they went with this mechanic in TW3, it seems a bit strange, but what can you do... What is funny is that really one bottle of alcohol will be enough to replenish all your supplies, even if you have used up a lot of potions, bombs, etc.
The TW2 mechanic was mostly alright, except for the somewhat confusing crafting screen, and, of course, the fights all too often occuring after cutscenes, so that sometimes you were simply not able to use potions.

Woo didn't guess it at all, just believe it was a weird incimplete message.

The herbs collecting is rather weak/uninteresting because of the unlimited resources.

Well TW1 was tedious with the special potions with a dominant element providing an additional advantage, I quickly stopped bother with that.

TW2 was totally incoherent with the inability to use potions during combats, thankfully TW3 fixed it. I'm not sure for oils but even if not realistic the game should allow apply one during a combat.

The auto replenish of bombs and potions (not oils apparently) is probably a good feature just not very well explained inside the GUI (with good messages/good tooltips).