Cannabis And CBD Whiskey Cocktails
Beat The New Sober By Borrowing Their Ingredients
By Richard Thomas
One of the possible shifts in trends I foresee is that if New Sober continues to make headway with Gen Z, whiskey could tumble into unpopularity again and for familiar reasons. In the 1970s, the Boomers moved away from the whiskey and other brown spirits enjoyed by their parents, embracing wine and vodka instead. Now the New Sober/Sober Curious fad is gaining increasing traction with Generation Z. That their supposed health-conscious reasons for doing so have little or no basis in science doesn’t seem to matter, any more than science ever has in prevailing fashion. To cite just one example, smoking pot is in no way healthier than drinking on any relative scale, but that doesn’t stop cannabis advocates from claiming it is or the growing pot industry from funding studies attempting to prove alcohol is a major health negative.
An obvious avenue for staying ahead of trends is through the continuing relevance of high end mixology: borrow the prime ingredients away from the New Sober movement, incorporate them into whiskey cocktails and create drinks everyone should be able to enjoy. That puts the narrowly anti-alcohol Prohibitionists on the back foot, forced to defend why they think the THC-bearing plants are OK, but the whiskey is not. I mean, this combination is so obvious there are already Ready To Drink (RTD) THC-infused whiskey cocktails on the market.
Warning: Before delving into the subject matter, a disclaimer is necessary: The Whiskey Reviewer in no way encourages law breaking. If cannabis products or CBD are not legal in the place you live, set this article aside for when you either are in a place that it is legal or legalization reaches your area.
Cannabis-Infused Whiskey
The simplest route to combining marijuana and a whiskey cocktail is to infuse the whiskey itself with cannabis. Keeping in mind the spicy nature of marijuana in food (think the Happy Pizzas of Cambodia), rye whiskey is the best choice for a successful infusion. Start by baking 8 grams of your marijuana at 240F for 45 minutes. While that is baking, pour your fifth bottle (750ml) of rye whiskey into a larger size of jar. Add the pot, seal the jar with its lid, and set it in a cupboard for approximately two days. Strain the whiskey to remove plant bits, and then pour it back in its original bottle. You now have a bottle of marijuana-infused rye whiskey, with a special twist on its spiciness, ready for use in traditional rye whiskey cocktails like the Sazerac or Manhattan.
If you choose to infuse bourbon instead, try a high rye bourbon like Four Roses, Basil Hayden or Old Grandad. I don’t recommend infusing Irish Whiskey or Scotch Whisky, due to the flavors clashing, but some Canadian Whiskies would work.
The Cold Toddy
This is one cocktail I came across that specifically calls for the use of cannabis infused whiskey; I have never seen it in a not-cannabis version. Combine 3 ounces of whiskey (3 oz = two shots), 1 ounce of lemon juice, 1 teaspoon of honey and 1.5 ounces of simple syrup. Half-fill a cocktail shaker with ice, pour the concoction into the shaker, give it a vigorous tossing for half a minute and then strain over ice into the glass.
The CBD Julep
Although cannabis is not legal in Kentucky, CBD is, opening the path to combine two very Kentucky products into an equally Kentucky cocktail: bourbon, the cannabis-derived CBD (Kentucky is famous as an excellent place to grow marijuana and hemp) and the mint julep.
How to do this is simple: make the mint julep as normal but add a few drops of CBD oil as you would bitters. Alternately, if you wished to make a cannabis and mint julep, simply add some cannabis leaves in with the mint when you do the muddling.
