Baking a Fool of Myself: Cannabis-Infused Liquor Toppings

Cannabis has become so mainstream now that the time-honored tradition of hiding five pounds of ‘B’ grade weed in two pounds of butter has grown obsolete. One can practice subtler methods of prepping and storing their cannabis in these epochal times. Low-dose infusions are much more popular than the heroic doses of yesteryear.

The tradition of reducing and disguising cannabis in butter came about as a clever way to camouflage lesser grades of weed lying around after harvest. Try burning it, and you invite all your neighbors into your business; try throwing it away in garbage bags (careful not to leave fingerprints) and now you are littering. Remember the trim contains a lot of THC content but it’s not so nice to smoke.

When cannabis was illegal nobody wanted to get arrested with a bunch of garbage bags full of leaves and stems because the cops would weigh up everything, good or bad, and charge you with that amount. When I got busted for pot cookies, they weighed up the whole tin of cookies (probably the tin, too) and charged me with that weight. “She was trafficking three pounds your honor,” makes one seem like a way bigger dealer than “she was trafficking a dozen pot cookies your honor.” You see why getting rid of stuff not worth getting busted for in the first place was high priority for growers, trimmers, and bakers… back in the day!

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Read also: How To Make Cannabis-Infused Butter

One day in the early 2000’s, bubble bags came into existence that made hash making quick and easy. The “hide/reduce the trim” problem was solved overnight. Bubble bag hash flooded the market and bakers now had to pay for shake where it was once free.

I witnessed edibles back then that were super-high dose. Probably because the butter was so potent, one tablespoon could be 800 mg or more. Nobody was being scientific; they were following a recipe that called for half a cup of butter. Potentially you could have a 2,400 mg brownie on your hands designed to serve eight people.

Making low-dose dishes, and using anything but butter is the future of homemade edibles. There were very good reasons in the past to reduce a lot of trim into butter, but today’s baker has more freedom to let their imagination run wild without greening anybody out.

Submitted by Watermelon

Recipe: Cannabis-Infused Liquor Toppings

Infusing alcohol with Mary Jane is so easy, I want to share my technique with you.

Choose any alcohol you like. To get a spectrum of ideas, I chose rum, whisky, and black sambuca.

After we infuse the spirits, the spirits will infuse us by gently intoxicating our favorite toppings such as whipped cream, ice cream, or maple syrup, much the same way vanilla extract would flavor it. Infused spirits are a perfect way to micro-dose any recipes that are better with a ‘bit o booze’ anyway.

Not designed for cocktails per se, but more for adding a hint of flavor to ignite the evening drink or dessert. Prepping alcohol infusions, clearly labeling them, and storing them in your baking cupboard will make you feel like a top weed chef.

Read also: A Quick Guide to Cannabis Infusions

INSTRUCTIONS

• Pre-heat the oven to 220°F.
• Decarboxylate your ‘B’ grade cannabis.
• On a cookie sheet covered by parchment paper assemble all trim, leaves, and other ‘B’ grade cannabis lying around or at least enough to the fill a tray.
• Toast it in the oven for an hour, turn it over every twenty minutes and make sure it doesn’t burn. The most sensuous part is that distinct sweet scent of cannabis conversion, so I like to go low and slow and enjoy the process.
• After an hour, remove from oven and let cool for a minute before stuffing the toasted weed menagerie into three medium-sized jars. Fill up to ¾ full.
• Pour each liquor into its clearly labeled jar, tighten the lid, give it a shake, and move on to the next one. Store these jars in a warm spot to help the infusion process. Maybe give them a shake once a day, twice if you’re crazy like me.
• Four to seven days later, after giving them their last shake, strain off the plant matter.
• Transfer those beautiful new infused liquor extractions into smaller clearly marked jars.

We are ready to top a banana cream pie with rum-infused whip cream, then we are going to warm up some whiskey infused maple syrup to top waffles, and for the encore, we will simply pour a capful or two of infused black Sambuca over a bit of vanilla ice cream. Today is a Good Day!

Here are some useful tips when considering what alcohols, you want to infuse:

1. The higher the alcohol content, the better the conversion can be.
2. Fine-ground marijuana absorbs too much of the liquor. Leave the plant as whole as possible when you toast it and stuff it into the jars.
3. The cannabis infusion is going to alter the taste of the chosen booze as well as adjust the color. I have chosen strong flavored booze with darker tones to mask the taste and avoid ugly greenish brown hues that would affect white spirits more.

Bake a fool of yourself with more recipes from Watermelon: