Of all the edibles out there, honey is among the most healing ingredients with which to combine cannabis.
Honey alone contains a number of essential enzymes, vitamins, and minerals, as well as antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties. Historically, such as in ancient Egypt, it was used for treating allergies, wounds, coughs, and even as a memory booster.
So infusing honey with cannabis could make it all the more medicinal. Stirring some weed honey into tea or pouring it over some fruit could be a great way to to medicate.
“Honey is a nourishing superfood and is such a gift for mankind,” says Ross Mills, owner of Echo Electuary, a cannabis extract and edible processor, which makes weed honey out of Eugene, Oregon. “Humans have been seeking honey and beeswax since the dawn of time. It seems so natural to infuse honey with cannabis. Some people don’t want to taste the cannabis oil, so the delicious honey helps to make it palatable.”
With 25 beehives and soon to be more, Mills combines honey with not just cannabis, but also other herbs from the farm like ginger and turmeric. “I consider working with the bees a sacred relationship,” she says. In fact, so passionate about bees, Mills and her business partner Regan O’Reilly donate three percent of their profits to causes supporting bees.
Echo Electuary includes various flavors of herbal, medicated honeys such as ginger elderberry, schisandra cranberry, cinnamon cacao, turmeric cardamon, and vanilla espresso. They also make ginger honey chews, honey sticks, and topical CBD ointments.
Companies like Honey Pot also make cannabis infused honey, packaged into little honey bear containers. The winner of eight High Times Cannabis Cups, Honey Pot also makes honey sticks, medicated teas, and topical balms. The company’s infused honey contains only three ingredients: local wildflower honey, coconut oil, and cannabis.
In fact, weed honey isn’t so hard to make, even at home. You can make it plain, or add herbs like lavender, sage, vanilla, or chamomile. To start, you’ll need to decarboxylate your cannabis. Preheat the oven to 240 degrees and spread an ounce or two of bud or trim onto a baking dish. Cover it with foil and a baking sheet and bake them for an hour. The decarboxylation process is necessary to transform the non-psychoactive raw THC into the psychoactive THCA.
The next step is infusing the honey with the weed. Wrap the decarboxylated cannabis in a double layered cheesecloth and place it in a crockpot, to which you’ll add one to five pounds of honey. Make sure the slow cooker is on low so that the honey never boils, over the the four to eight hours which you’ll heat it. Then let the mixture cool overnight.
And voila, you’ll have weed infused honey that you can refrigerate or freeze, or eat right away by the spoonful or with other food and drinks.
