Re:

How to make Cannabutter

Mon, 16/Oct/23

Cannabutter is a clear combination of “cannabis” and “butter”, also referred to as marijuana butter or weed butter. Cannabutter is the word we employ in the cannabis space for infused butter. Call it an industry standard or a stoner’s slang, if you wish, it does not change the idea:

— Cannabutter is regular butter with the active marijuana compounds, like THC, emulsified in it. Cannabutter is as high as marijuana itself (usually much higher) if you eat it.

Our best directions for weed butter cooking start just below in this post, but beforehand we cite a collection of noteworthy information you’d better acquire once you are on the cannabutter making quest.

How strict are the temperature rules, what is weed ghee and what are the best hints to store it, why do we want to add water to avoid the famous weedy smell, and many other things, just read on.

How to use Cannabutter

Cannabutter is rarely consumed “as is”, yet you may try of course, but more often, if not almost always, it is involved as a component of the recipes for creating weed edibles. Virtually any regular recipe which contains regular butter can be cooked with cannabutter instead so that the final product shall kick in once being eaten.

Cannabutter temperature range

Keeping an eye on the cannabutter temperature range is twice as important: (1) when you make cannabutter, and (2) when you cook with cannabutter. All because the THC, the active compound of marijuana making you “high”, is rather sensitive to temperature and can be easily destroyed by over-temperature.

The under-temperature in its turn may result that your marijuana eventually emulsified into butter shall not activate its THC, then your cannabutter shall face a risk of being not working.

The best temperature for simmering cannabutter

When you make cannabutter, you practically infuse butter with marijuana by simmering for a few hours. The sweet temperature point for cannabutter simmering is 230-250℉, which equals roughly 110℃. THC only gets “activated” at this temperature point, but in fact, it is already activated by prior decarboxylation, and you deliver a bit lower temp to the inside of your mix of butter and marijuana to keep all safe from destruction. Some sources recommend setting 320℉ (160℃) if you wish to save some time.

Do not allow boiling under no circumstances

Applying the “Bath Marie” technique for simmering cannabutter is a safe and common practice, especially if you lack a cooking thermometer and/or you are a first-timer. For this, you put a bowl with cannabis and butter mix over boiling water.

Adding water into cannabutter

The other practice is to add water inside to the mix of butter and marijuana. In this case, water shall be evaporating, taking away unnecessary heat, saving your cannabutter and THC in it from burning, and also removing the weedy herbal smell away more effectively than normal.

Using water as described is the perfect way to get rid of the herbal taste of weed in edibles when you bake them with cannabutter, and this is a beautiful discovery indeed.

On the other hand, there is already a small amount water in butter but you may add slightly more for enforce the effect. Note that idyllically water must evaporate completely out of cannabutter in the end of cooking, this includes water which is already in it before you’ve added any extra!!

Keep in mind, using water pouring it inside of a cannabutter is a sort of an “advanced technique” but you try your experiment. We would recommend following the classic cannabutter recipe first to understand the whole thing before going any further. On the other hand, being brave may give fruits, who may argue.

The best temperature for baking with cannabutter

The decomposition of THC occurs at 380-480℉, which is 200-250℃. For the cannabutter cookies temperature, you can go a little higher than the lower point in this range, because there is a slight difference between the outer temperature and how hot it is inside of your cookies or any other edible product that you cook.

For example, you bake weed brownies with cannabutter (historically the most classic weed edible recipe) at 390-430℉, which is 200-220℃, and that should be safe enough for preserving THC inside.

We confirm we have done this way a hundred times and it kicks in every time. Consider adjusting the temp specifically for your cooker and your sort of marijuana. Using a cooking thermometer is a good idea either.

We recommend staying at the lower temperature possible is the safe way. THC won’t go anywhere until you destroy butter itself, and burn it, but THC can be decomposed yet. By that, you select recipes containing butter but you choose ones where the cooking temp is low or no cooking at all: cheesecakes, brownies, cookies, buttercream to decorate cakes, etc.

Technically speaking, THC is trapped (or say “emulsified”) in cannabutter, so it won’t get released or destroyed that easily. But you stay very serious about not going any higher than the range of the recommended temperatures. THC is yet very sensitive anyway, just the cannabutter is here to help us with the temperature issue greatly.

What does decarboxylation do?

In your marijuana buds, there is no THC per se, but there is an acid instead, it is called THCA, where trailing “a” stands for acid in its name. Once THCA gets exposed to heating above 230-250℉, roughly 110℃, it converts into THC and the latter absorbs into the bloodstream in the lungs from the smoke that you inhale.

When you eat cannabis there is no 250℉ in your digestion system, that is why THCA shall never set you high if you just munch weed straight away.

The chemical process we discuss here is called “decarboxylation”, which is technically speaking, the removal of carbon dioxide group (CO2) by continuous exposure to heating from the mentioned acid compound, and it becomes THC.

In other words, you heat your buds at the proper temperature to perform decarboxylation as a chemical process, and such is called “decarboxylation” as a word, where decarboxylate is the verb, often shortened to “decarb” among the cannabis folk in the cannabis space.

Cannabutter Recipe Chef 420

Now we present a classic cannabutter recipe. Yes, finally. This one goes without water in it, but you can alter it, as we described earlier in this post. We thank our friend Chef 420 for the master class. And, before you even touch any butter — the first step — you want to activate THC in your marijuana buds. What we call “decarboxylation” or “decarb”.

The decarbed weed shall be already high even if you wish to consume it straight away. Yet for sake of better performance and taste, we’d better to emulsify the desired chemical compounds: taking them from that THC-ready weed (decarbed weed) and delivering them into butter — this is going to be the longest step. And, in the last stage then we filter out the grass matter, making your regular butter finally be a cannabutter.

How to decarboxylate marijuana for cannabutter

Crush or grind your marijuana, either bud or shake, but you do not grind it into powder. Make its pieces be looking slightly above the oregano state.

How to decarboxylate marijuana for cannabutter
The image is the courtesy of Chef 420

Put ground marijuana into a frying pan wide and shallow enough, or a tray (shown in the picture), or any other dish designed for heating that you are used to. We love using a thermo-glass tray.

Heat it at cannabutter decarboxylation temperature, which is, we mentioned, is 230-250℉ and that equals roughly 110℃. Keep in mind reaching 380℉ (or 200℃) shall kill your THC making marijuana useless since then and cannabutter shall not work consequently.

— The higher temperature you set (in the reasonable range) the shorter time you need for it to be ready.

— At 230℉ (or 110℃) you need about 30-40 minutes.

— At 320℉ (or 160℃) you need about 20-30 minutes.

— Check its readiness by color by the bare eye. Logically, you will need a little experience for that one, but you can see the visible change of color even on your first try.

— Also, you check the readiness of your decarbed marijuana by crushing it with your fingers. It must be felt as super dry, over-dried even, and it goes crushed into quasi-powder with almost no effort.

You’ll gain your experience after an attempt or two. Starting from a smaller amount is a good piece of advice, once you fail you won’t ruin all your harvest.

The ingredients for cannabutter

The ingredients to make cannabutter are:

1 LB. of BUTTER
1/2 OZ. of MARIJUANA BUDS

Yes, that is all we need, simple as that.

— Use essentially butter and not margarine.

— You can use shake, that shall be leaves and stems or trim, then you double the amount of weed for the same amount of butter.

— For the metric system followers: 1 oz, one ounce, constitutes 28 grams, and 1 lb, one pound, constitutes 450 grams. Then you use 420 grams for better luck in cooking, ha-ha.

— You can use a smaller amount of marijuana for the recipe, then you result in a less potent cannabutter. Not an issue at all as soon as it reflects your goal, either you have no wish to allocate that much weed for a mere cooking experiment. All directions stay the same for a smaller amount of weed in butter or a smaller amount of butter.

Will neighbors smell the cannabis I am cooking?

Oh, you’d better believe it, neighbors shall smell cannabis. An important message is when you cook cannabutter you be ready for a thick marijuana smell clouding around your kitchen and beyond during the whole period of cannabutter cooking. Means 6-7 hours.

Neighbors or wandering passers-by-your-window shall certainly guess what you are doing. We have cooked a few times in a yacht docked in a touristic port in the middle of summer, the number of smiles around in the marina we have joyfully contemplated.

Cannabutter directions

— Melt the butter at low fire and low temperature. Keep it in the “just about to start boiling” condition: small bubbles you allow, but a full-scale volcano you avoid.

— Add up decarboxylated marijuana buds into the liquid butter. Stir carefully.

How to make Cannabutter below the boiling point in Bath Marie

In the picture the Cannabutter quasi-boiling slowly (weed is in).

— Continue at a slow fire, or switch to “Bath Marie” (this is when a pan is placed over boiling water) and keep it going for the next 6-7 hours.

Yes, it takes that long!

— Filter the melted butter from the remains of the weed tissue. Use a classic paper filter or a medical gauze, the latter I prefer to use (as shown in the picture).

How to filter cannabutter with gauze filter

In the picture we are filtering hot cannabutter.

— The substance left in the filter is the plant tissue and other stuff, and it is already empty at this stage, just throw it away.

— The resulted liquid butter we already may call “cannabutter”, and it is already rich with activated THC and other pleasurable cannabinoids.

— Let it cool down at room temperature, and it’s ready.

Ready Cannabutter for edibles cooled in a glass jar

In the picture: ready cooled cannabutter in a glass jar.

You have noticed of course out of these cannabutter directions, the resulting product is more likely a rendered butter, aka ghee, rather than butter, but we bend to the influence of the industry norm and we all call it “cannabutter” in the community.

However, we mentioned ghee (clarified or rendered butter) for the next chapter clarifying that how we store ghee is how we store cannabutter.

How to store cannabutter

As soon as we see now that cannabutter is a clarified rendered butter, better known among cooks as “ghee”, we store cannabutter as we store ghee.

Ghee is cooked by humanity for centuries before any fridge has been even invented, and we suggest the primary purpose of ghee was its storage capabilities. Therefore, the storage of cannabutter (we remind, the latter is technically ghee) inherits the possibility to be put at room temperature for a relatively long while.

— The best container for cannabutter is a glass jar tightly sealed.

— A plastic container shall work as long as it is designed for storing food. We also love to use German-made plastic food containers, but a good old glass jar is simply the best.

— Low humidity, darkness and chill are friends to cannabutter.

— How long does cannabutter last at room temperature? At room temperature, cannabutter should stay well for about 1-2 months safely, and up to 3-4 months reportedly.

— How does cannabutter go bad at room temperature? You need to smell your weed butter before any further usage especially when it was there for longer than one month. Any foreign smell can indicate a problem. A few weeks or a month should be safe.

— In a fridge cannabutter is safe for a few months, peeps report up to 6 months. A rule of thumb is that weed butter lasts longer than regular butter, and is equal to regular ghee.

— In a freezer, there are reports about keeping it for 2 years and on, but just we have failed to keep a jar of weed butter for that long. We suggest knowing the safe storage of weed butter may continue for several weeks is simply a piece of comprehensive information.

— If there is liquid in the cannabutter you shall see how it’ll get separated once cooled in a jar. Yet another reason to use a glass jar is to detect water in the lowest layer. This is not very right, though this is not the end of the world, and you can use such cannabutter, no issue.

However, once the cannabutter gets separated in a jar, just remove all water away. In such a case, butter shall stay on top and water construe a lower layer as it is heavier. Carefully puncture a hole in butter with a spoon or a knife from aside of a “butter cap” and pour out all water.

Do not store your cannabutter with water inside the jar, except that for an immediate term, a couple of days or three, hardly a week. Proper ghee (including cannabutter) must not contain water, because the ideological reason for ghee is removing water and remains of milk out of butter for longer storage. Consider adjusting the cooking process on the next try. Once you’ve got water in it, cook it or eat it, and do not store it for too long.

How to calculate a cannabutter dosage

An overdose of marijuana may become an unpleasant experience, no matter how nonsensical many of us may accept this statement. Indeed, it is a harder task to overdose by merely smoking, but a “victim” most probably shall fall asleep before any bad effect comes. Even though many of us stoners have seen at least once in life another person barking at ants after a cannabis overdose from smoking.

When it comes to edibles, the issue grows. The digestion is a bloody slow-motion compared to the lungs-to-blood mechanics of smoking. The active compounds of marijuana (like THC) make their way towards the liver first, which is already too slow, then they defuse into the bloodstream, only then contracting CB-receptors of the brain. It may take an hour or hours from the moment you eat marijuana till the “high” effect reaches its peak, instead of a few seconds when you smoke.

An example of calculating a cannabutter dosage for edibles

1) Say, you have infused half a pound of butter with, say, half an ounce of weed.

2) You have baked a tray of brownies out of it, where there are 10 pieces of brownies.

3) In this case, each brownie roughly equals less than 1.5g of weed smoked.

You split 14g of weed (half an ounce) into 10 pieces of brownies. You divide 14g by 10 pieces, it results 1.4-1.5g per piece, count each such brownie is an equivalent to a good joint.

The effect from edibles is stronger, that is true, but you are waiting for an effect knowing you have consumed about 1.5 grams. For throwing off you need to eat that whole tray at once.

Other sources suggest trying cannabutter, a spoonful of it. Chew it well and then wait for half an hour or an hour. Fair enough, such should work either.

The effect however depends on many variables. Some of them are: what is already inside of your stomach, how full it is, how well you have slept, and when you smoked last time, finally the effectiveness of your cannabutter infusion process. Practical testing should bring better accurate results to you rather than a theoretical calculation of the dosage.

Effects of consuming edibles compared to smoking marijuana

Just be careful about eating weed, as you shall stay super-high and even higher than that significantly longer. With edibles, it is harder to control your “highness”, compared to smoking. And, whatever promising such may seem for an ideological stoner, be warned that consuming weed as edibles may become a challenge on your first try, but it’s worthy.

Having that said, there shall be no “waves of high” coming repeatedly in a curve, like when you are stoned by smoking, but with the edibles, it shall be more like one big wave and no down periods. You’ll be all way top-high if proper edibles, which may sound funny but it may occur be challenging on the first try.

If a super-high condition is not happening to you, such may mean you probably have washed out in the butter-making technology and you need to improve it.

Benefits of cannabutter edibles

Smoking marijuana versus eating edibles is a personal preference. Both are worth a try. However, there are other reasons why people go for edibles, except that it is tasty.

1) Many people start cooking weed edibles having no wish to smoke. Struggling with hardship to inhale smoke, or impossible to do so as of a health condition, or simply having no wish to smoke — these are common reasons why people find it beneficial to consume weed edibles instead of classic smoking.

2) Getting bored with smoking if one is looking desperately how else to consume marijuana, to get a different high, or merely change something looking for a new feeling. We smoke joints, then switch to bongs and pipes, then swap back, or use everything from the list depending on the occasion. Dear God, why not we attempt edibles? This is just another brilliant option and an endlessly tasty option.

3) Smell produced by smoking may become a serious reason to consider edibles. Imagine, having a handful of candies infused with marijuana in a pocket you stay “safe” in the surrounding of people who are still locked by the stereotypes of the past century. Edibles become a matter of convenience. Sharing such “candies” with friends is fun too.

4) Maybe you are seriously keen on cooking, having a bunch of favorite recipes you are proud about and a couple of cooking secrets on top. We suggest it is a matter of time for you to start making cannabutter and infusing weed edibles with it. This is love and the same reason, why marijuana images avalanche the internet and social networks being delivered by artists or photographers, who are also stoners.

Can I cook marijuana skipping cannabutter at all?

Yes, you can cook and eat decarboxylated (“decarbed”) marijuana without cannabutter. A good example is a weed smoothie containing no butter at all, or you can use decarbed marijuana as a spice for seasoning as they do it in Cambodia, India and god-only-knows where else.

I swear I saw with my own eyes in Cambodian “happy pizza” place, in Seam Reap, my chef threw a batch of decarboxylated weed, maybe eight grams or about, into pizza for us two for an early dinner. We ate and we were in la-la-land after one hour till next noon.

Ye-ah, Cambodians cook weed for thousands of years, I confirm they pick wilder and stronger marijuana than what we have here in the market.

Chef 420 animated GIF

Yoo-hoo! CHEF 420 is in this “photo”!!

That’s all for now.

Enjoy making your cannabutter.


Moroccan “love candy” called Majoun, brilliant storms of laughter

Thu, 12/Oct/23

Alice B. Toklas hashish fudge recipe, which we have discovered in her famous cookbook, has a strong link to the Moroccan hashish candy, aka love candy. It is called “majoun”, a traditional confection made of hashish, nutmeg, black pepper, other spices, and dried fruits in Berber cuisine, also found in India and Iran. Majoun’s primary purpose is spirituality and fun, of course, also peace and love, as its name means “love potion”. Besides, majoun helps greatly to stand common cold.

Who was Alice B. Toklas?

Alice Babette Toklas migrated from San Francisco to Paris in 1907, when she was 29. She was not a pretty girl: “the tiny stature, the sandals, the mustache, and the eyes”, but she used to be a charismatic hostess of her Parisian café, and a magnetic schmoozer.

Alice B. Toklas

Alice B. Toklas

Eventually, the hashish edibles along with the obvious virtuosity of the cook and the “enchantment of her speaking voice – like a viola at dusk” made Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, and Henri Matisse hung out frequently at her gatherings. Surely, the reason was not her mustache, ha-ha, I’m sorry, I’m just kidding. Anyway, thank you, Alice B. Toklas, for the fantastic assembly!

When the edibles kick in

This is a joke in the first place. Artists express the mind in their artworks, so we tracked down how Matisse and Picasso, “the wild men of Paris”, have changed their paintings after Alice B. Toklas opened the doors of her saloon. We do not insist there is any correlation between hashish edibles kick in and the paintings, the coincidence there is, nonetheless.

When edibles kick in, Picasso, Sleeping Peasants

Alice B. Toklas Cookbook

Alice B. Toklas’s book is not entirely an edible bible, to be precise, but a cookbook of an extravagant genre: called “autobiographic cookbook”. I dare to believe, this is the world’s only work of the kind, where the events of life are mixed in a ragtag with the recipes of the French cuisine, which Alice Babette Toklas approved greatly.

  • Alice B. Toklas cookbook is not made of cooking directions of a classic style, but they are small stories. She shared the recipes she collected all life, so she described all the trailing circumstances – how and when, and from whom she borrowed this or that one.
  • Alice B. Toklas spelled the hashish and marijuana words differently compared to the norm of the modern-day, she referred to hashish as “haschich”, and she called cannabis “canibus” or “canibus sativa” in her writing.
  • When the Alice B. Toklas book was published in 1954 the authorities in America strongly disregarded the inclusion of marijuana edibles. Later in an interview, she excused herself: “The recipe was innocently included without my realizing that the hashish was the accented part of the recipe. I was shocked to find that America wouldn’t accept it because it was too dangerous.”
  • Alice B. Toklas suggests that the mix of hashish, black pepper, and nutmeg in a form of candy is effective to survive the common cold: “In Morocco, it is thought to be good for warding off the common cold in damp winter weather and is, indeed, more effective if taken with large quantities of hot mint tea.”

Alice B. Toklas Hashish Fudge

Cannabis Chocolate Fudge

“Take one teaspoon of black peppercorns, one whole nutmeg, four sticks of cinnamon, and one teaspoon of coriander. These should all be pulverized in a mortar. About a handful each of stoned dates, dried figs, shelled almonds, and peanuts: chop these and mix them together. A bunch of ‘canibus sativa’ can be pulverized. This along with the spices should be dusted over the mixed fruit and nuts, and kneaded together. About a cup of sugar dissolved in a big pat of butter. Rolled into a cake and cut into pieces or made into balls about the size of a walnut, it should be eaten with care. Two pieces are quite sufficient. Obtaining the ‘canibus’ may present certain difficulties. It should be picked and dried as soon as it has gone to seed and while the plant is still green.”

The hint is – mash it by hand. Some sources recommend a food processor to blend by several short pulses, however cooking marijuana edibles is a mystery and a joy for the heart: as you love to roll joints manually, where a grinder is the only machinery, so cooking with hands and no machinery gives its fruits, you better believe it.

“Euphoria and brilliant storms of laughter; ecstatic revelries and extensions of one’s personality on several simultaneous planes are to be complacently expected,” – Alice B. Toklas.

Alice B. Toklas Brownie

Alice B. Toklas brownie has happened in the movie “I love you, Alice B. Toklas” of 1968, and not in her cookbook of 1954. Nancy, the character of Leigh Taylor-Young, used “Fudge Brownie” from a box for cooking marijuana brownies.

Alice B Toklas brownies in the movie I love you, Alice B Toklas

Leigh Taylor Young as Nancy in I love you Alice B Toklas movie

Leigh Taylor-Young as Nancy

The recipe in the book was for candy, and not a brownie. At least, there is no chocolate in the Moroccan candy of Alice B. Toklas, but a similarity between the names “Haschich Fudge” branded in the cookbook and “Fudge Brownie” branded in the movie could lead to confusion.

Decarboxylation

Remarkably, neither Alice B. Toklas in her book nor the makers of the “I love you, Alice B. Toklas” movie mention anyhow the decarboxylation of weed for edibles. Why?

  • Well-cured cannabis already has a fair quantum of THC instead of THCA. This is what we achieve by decarboxylation. This makes cured cannabis more potent, if we smoke it, and edible-ready evenly.
  • Traditional methods of making hashish yield decarbed hashish. This includes Moroccan kif, which is the original ingredient of the Moroccan hashish candy of Alice B. Toklas.
  • Decarboxylation will not harm whatsoever, but it shall kick in better anyway. Proper decarb process may result in up to 80-90% of THCA broken to THC, which you doubtfully can reach by curing.

Grind dry marijuana trim or buds, spread it over a cooking tray or a frying pan, then expose it to the temperature of 230-250℉, roughly 110℃, for about 30-40 minutes in the oven. Do not over-heat, otherwise, THC can be destroyed at all and you lose your weed. Applying “Bath Marie”, aka water bath, or crockpot, we extend the time to 1-1.5 hours.

Can I use cannabutter for Alice B. Toklas hashish fudge?

The short answer: yes, of course.

As soon as the famous Alice B. Toklas edible recipe already contains a “big pat of butter” in itself, therefore using cannabutter for making the weed edible is just logical. However, the original recipe suggests using buds or trim straight away as described in Alice B. Toklas book, or hashish (kif) as in the traditional Moroccan hashish candy recipe.

Cooking-wise, any random original recipe, and especially when it is that old, lasting for centuries, is tested by time, it becomes already impeccable. Our hashish candy contains other spices, some of them are somewhat psychoactive, like black pepper or nutmeg. If you wish, this makes marijuana a spice, or a fruit, applying to Alice B. Toklas hashish fudge.

Cannabutter is awesome, but specifically for this candy, I favor using buds as a spice rather than input cannabutter as a source of high only: after all, nobody knows what else the ancients meant when invented this recipe for us.

Best recipes for the munches

Edibles we eat to be high, while munches we eat being already high. Munches are all munches, not necessarily psychoactive. Here is our best selection of the munches recipes of Alice B. Toklas.

Alice B. Toklas Flaming Peaches

Alice B Toklas, flaming peaches recipes

Flaming peaches, or Peach flambe

“Fresh peaches are preferable, though canned ones can be substituted. If fresh, take 6 and cover with boiling water for a few minutes, and peel. Poach in 1½ cups of water over low flame for 3 or 4 minutes. Place in a chafing dish, add ¼ cup of sugar, and ¾ cup of peach brandy. Bring to the table and light the chafing dish. When the syrup is about to boil, light and ladle it over the peaches. Serve each peach lighted.”

Alice B. Toklas Mushroom Sandwich

“Mushroom sandwiches have been my specialty for years. They were made with mushrooms cooked in butter with a little juice of lemon. After 8 minutes of cooking, they were removed from heat, chopped, and then pounded into a paste in the mortar. Salt, pepper, a pinch of cayenne, and an equal volume of butter were thoroughly amalgamated with them. Well and good.”

Alice B. Toklas Chicken Sandwich

“This method is the same up to a certain point. These are the proportions. For ¼ lb. mushrooms cooked in 2 tablespoons of butter add 2 scrambled eggs and 3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese and mix well. The recipe ends with: This makes a delicious sandwich that tastes like chicken. A Frenchman can say no more. Which gave me the idea of introducing chicken sandwiches in which chopped and pounded chicken is substituted for the mushrooms. Naturally, they are well received.”

Enjoy!


Pirates’ canting lingo, shiver me timbers!

Tue, 18/Jan/22

The Black Jack was once a barrel, even a table, and it was totally not a card game as we know it now. A remarkable number of maritime words were not landlubber from the beginning, but they have migrated from and under the influence of the romantic image of the Caribbean Pirates. Whatever opinions exist if they were bad or good guys, yet only a few may ague the Pirates of the Caribbean do avalanche the imagination.

Starting from Stevenson’s novels and going on till modern-day comics and movies, anime cartoons, numerous fan art, games and all other kinds of artworks, we always find the Caribbean Pirates’ images in any art epoch.

For this ever-lasting movement we have collected a handy vocabulary of the Pirate jargon of the Golden Age of Piracy we showcase here:

SHIPSHAPE — is for anything in a proper shape for the purpose, being in a great order and worthy. Also, see the definition of “TRIM” down below on this page. The post includes the shipshape contents, no tacking about! Aye!

Jolly Roger, Classic Pirate Flag Flying

The purpose of this collection of pirate slang is to fancy a vocabulary when speaking to friends and in social media. These words and idioms represent basically the “maritime jargon” modified by the Tortuga lifestyle of the 17th century, this is how the “pirate slang” appeared, one that we recognize in the artworks. You will notice some of them sneak into the normal language even losing the original meaning. Have fun reading.

SLACK WATER — is a period between a high tide and a low tide, when the water stands still and goes nowhere: neither up nor down. Indeed, the tide is changing the direction while the water is totally calm for a short while. Slack water is a peaceful time, a resting point.

BLACK JACK — this one is not the card game originally, but very likely giving its name to the blackjack card game. The Black Jack was a barrel of bear used in pubs (short from “public house”) and taverns of the time, as a barrel while it had contents and then as a table when it got empty. The same use of the Black Jack was applied onboard of a boat. Why the Jack is Black? Because all those barrels of beer got to be sealed and coated externally with tar, so all those jacks were in fact black ones. No doubt, pirates played cards and dice sitting around the black jacks.

SAVVY — comes from “being smart” or simply “smart” from French, used widely over the pirate community, and it certainly gained another ton of popularity as being promoted in the Pirates of the Caribbean motion picture franchise. “Savvy” as a question is equivalent to “Do you read me?” in a radio language, or “Know what I mean” in the landlubber’s slang.

EIGHT BELLS — is a shift. A bell is a sound called manually after the sand glass changed, and the sand glass was 30 minutes long. A boat making way measures time by sand glass and making bells. If you are on a shift, then your 8th bell you hear shall mean the end of the shift, as those shifts are 4 hours long traditionally (and till now, for example, when a one-hand boat makes it through the ocean, the skipper usually takes a 4-hour shift before taking a nap, then wakes up every 4 hours). Eight bells practically mean a rest and a bottle of rum! Yo ho ho!

Note that the T.G.I.F. is a sort of reflection of the EIGHT BELLS. More likely, there is no direct connection, but the TGIF pursues the idea of a rest after a shift, very similar to the Eight Bells.

BOAT — is a wider term for anything that floats in general, used till today among the sailing community for any floating thingy with a sail or any floating thingy classified for the purpose of pleasure. The contrary version is a “ship” which stands for a big boat, a part of the navy or a part of a larger fleet. A simple solution to pretend you are the mariner: use “boat” anywhere for anything that floats except that you stress specifically she was a tall ship or an aircraft carrier, well you got it.

AYE-AYE — a single Aye /aɪ/ is a maritime specific “yes”, while “Aye-aye” is a confirmation of the command, either a confirmation of understanding the said, used in the navy all the time. Aye-aye allegedly originates from the Norse language (those were the sailors!) and, through Middle English, it lands in the maritime community: “Aye-aye, captain”.

SCURVY DOG — is a foul person, as a left-handed compliment. It comes from “SCURVY” which was a term for a disease, identified nowadays as lack of Vitamin “C” described as softened gums, losing teeth, pain in limbs, breath issues, and overall weakness and tiredness. As an effective prevention, there was a rum drink called “bumbo”, find about the delicious, spicy, sweet, and in all ways magnificent Caribbean beverage further in this post.

AVAST — cease any operation immediately.

ANCIENT — this is how the colors got called once. Both “colors” and “ancient” mean the flag of a ship as in general. Ouch, sorry, of a boat.

JOLLY ROGER — is a pirate flag, usually a black one, sometimes white or red, often carrying symbols of Death along with symbols of Love and Liberty, or a combination of those. A sand hour-glass present on some Jolly Rogers expressed a warning to a victim: “The time is running out”.

Jolly Roger flag of Jacquotte Delahaye, female pirate who captured Tortuga in 1656
Jolly Roger of Jacquotte Delahaye, female pirate

The worst nightmare for a merchant ship was (and is now) to see a Jolly Roger on the horizon. It may appear romantic in games, on avatars or tattoos, but it is absolutely not your dream when you make way in neutral waters. God bless all sailors.

MATE — or “matey” is a friend, a buddy, a dude, a crew member. Aussie use “mate” in the same way nowadays, and it originates from the maritime slang. For example, the First Mate is the official title for the Captain’s right hand officer even nowadays, especially in the navy. I suggest there is obvious logic how the word “mate” landed in Australia and took its iconic place in the Australian dialect of English.

JERK — is salted and/or smoked beef cut in stripes. Used widely along the whole time span of the Age of Sail and beyond as the best opportunity to carry beef and keep it well in any conditions for an endless term. Jerk is offered widely as a common food component everywhere in the Caribbean even now. You put one into water before cooking for almost an entire day, and it still stays a salty piece after that, m-m, and heavenly tasty when properly cooked.

BUCCAN — salted/smoked beef, over-salted to be precise, similar to “jerk”, it usually cut in stripes, then smoked open-air under sun, or fire.

This buccan is, in fact, the very source where the “Buccaneer” as a term to refer to pirates originally comes from. First, it was one of the common civil professions in Tortuga for men in 1666. Second, buccaneers were also hunters, they hunted wild bovine which they cooked, smoked and salted, producing so a vital stock of well-stored food for ships.

BUCCANEER — is a pirate. As we mentioned just above, before being a pirate he was a hunter for wild bovines in Tortuga to make and trade buccan, salted smoked beef, among other cheap food products of the kind. I think buccan is a sort of localized version, geographically by Tortuga, and culturally by the seafaring community; while jerk is already a common term for this kind pf beef. Do you see similarities in sound for bacon and buccan, except that the former is port, and the latter is beef allegedly wild?

Imagine, the island of Tortuga was not rich in professions at all, hence everyone struggled for low pay, including the wild bovine hunters, and those were numbers in Tortuga of the time.

The buccaneers in Tortuga fated to be all-in-one: they were skillful hunters, butchers, also cooks, but yet resulting in low pay. Aye, and they were a crowd, or should we say a ready-made pirate crew!?

Of course, the deadly combination of physical strength, agility, virtuosity on survival, cooking, and weapons, both cold and firearms, inevitably formed a perfect set of skills to be a good pirate.

BUMBO — also Jumbo, or Jumbee, is a rum drink of the Caribbean pirates, the cocktail: rum, sugar, water, nutmeg and lime. Aye, the fictional pirates animated in movies, cartoons and literature seriously omit the gourmet preferences of the buccaneers:

— BUMBO was very easy to make in the conditions where the pirates were, from the components they had. The resulting rum drink contained lots of fresh lime juice effectively helping to restore the proverbial lack of Vitamin “C”. Lime grew everywhere in the region and it costs as much as sh*t even now in the Caribbean and South America. Savvy?

— NUTMEG was often a cargo due to its high demand in Europe, therefore presumably available on boats as in general. Nutmeg is commercially cultivated in the Caribbean till now, where Grenada is among the nutmeg-leading countries: there is nutmeg on the national flag of Grenada.

Nutmeg on the national flag of Grenada
Nutmeg — on the flag of Grenada

— NUTMEG contains psychoactive components and may provide mild hallucinogenic effects naturally. Also, nutmeg increases anandamide, the natural endocannabinoid in the human body. Aye, you read it right, THC (the psychoactive compound of marijuana) mimics anandamide and contracts the CB-receptors in the brain, this is why and how we get high, as of the discoveries performed by Dr. Raphael Mechoulam.

So, nutmeg affects the levels of anadamide delivering the euphoric “happy highness”, same idea as in black pepper, marijuana, vanilla, chocolate, etc. May be toxic in bigger amounts but for a cocktail should be fine.

— Do the buccaneers of the Caribbean appear as some lousy drunkards now? Aye, the lousy drunkards were able to capture whole islands, establish Free Republics as in Bahamas and Tortuga, trying to prototype a constitution (a law) in a form of that famous Pirate Code. They drank rum mixing it with water and lime and expensive spices as if it was a cocktail in a fancy modern-day bar.

Psychedelic means spiritual, am I right? Of course, there were bad guys among the Caribbean pirates, but not all of them. I think many wanted to find freedom and equity as their principal purpose.

We shall continue with the word list in a moment, right after the Bumbo recipe.

Bumbo / Jumbo ♥ Pirate Rum Cocktail Recipe:

Bumbo, Jumbo, or Jumbee is a pirate drink, so it is tasty, high, and easy for cooking. The ingredients for the original Bumbo rum beverage are as follows:

✴ 2 (oz) of Rum p/p,
✴ A whole OR a half of lime p/p
(squeezed juice),
✴ Three tablespoons of cane sugar p/p,
Nutmeg is very important!
✴ 3 (oz) of Water.

Pour rum into a tin or a mug, squeeze half a lime or a whole, add sugar not much, unless you wish a very special headache in the morning as of my personal experience, yet Bumbo is rather sweet cocktail. Then crush, grind or grate nutmeg into the mix. Note that crushing, grinding or grating nutmeg always provides a richer taste and aroma rather than using or buying the already ground one — some terpenes contracting your receptors are volatile, we do not want to lose them. Then fill the rest of your tin or mug with water, roughly 40/60 adjusting the ratio to personal preferences. Shake or use a wooden stick to stir. Bumbo is a pirate rum drink, which results in easy to make, and easy to moderate buzz because you do not wish to crush your barnacles. So enjoy it!

GROG — is yet another a rum cocktail, a mixture of water and rum, a simplified Bumbo, suggested by Admiral Vernon as a daily (and big enough) portion of strong alcohol for sailors in the British Navy.

The nickname of the Admiral within the maritime community of the time was Old Grog even before the Grog rum drink. The English naval tradition of drinking a mug of grog two times a day, for every soul, no exceptions, got abolished only in the second half of the 20th century.

We shall continue with the word list in a moment, right after the Grog recipe

Grog ♥ Royal Navy’s Rum Beverage:

Being an obvious derivative of Bumbo-Jumbo pirate drink, Grog inherits the same idea of making the finest time-tested rum cocktail; but grog is a simple (less ingredients) version of that bumbo, designed for navy and lasted there for 400 years, while all this time free people enjoyed bumbo. Okay.

The mentioned clever memo for the ingredients of rum beverages, for all three Grog, Bumbo, Flintlock rum recipes:

1 — one part Sour (this is lime),

2 — two parts Sweet (sugar),

3 — three parts Strong (rum),

4 — four parts Weak (water).

Remarkably, the ration of water to rum aligns to “the golden ratio”.

Nutmeg is out, that’s the principal difference. Unless you borrow one from cargo, if you are a navy, or just be a pirate to taste a better rum beverage.

Kidding, of course, just a gamer pirate is the utmost pleasure per se, and especially when sipping bumbo playing at home, ha-ha.

We shall continue the word listing right away after the Flintlock recipe.

Hot Jumbo ♥ Rum Beverage Recipe:

A charming modification for the Bumbo (or Jumbo) rum recipe — the mod we have once discovered, quite suddenly, and it out top preference for several years since then.

So the hot rum beverage is a practically boiled rum cocktail, you boil it and you take while it’s as hot as coffee. Hope you love hot alcoholic beverages, but I confirm this one is a very outstanding contester. Even if you are neutral to hot alcoholic cocktails, give this one a special chance, no regret 👍

Ingredients for the hot rum beverage are the same, but the cooking is a little complicated, just a little. The 1-2-3-4 memo fits entirely for this one too, and don’t forget nutmeg.

✴ 2 (oz) of Rum p/p,
✴ A whole OR a half of lime p/p
(squeezed juice),
✴ Three tablespoons of sugar p/p,
Nutmeg is important!
✴ 3 (oz) of Water.

Pour a little less than half of a standard mug into a pan, two times if making it for two people, you and your crush. Water shall boil out, add a splash on top. Add sugar. Crush, grate or grind nutmeg as it must be exposed to heat together with all the ingredients, but Rum stays at room temperature. Don’t you use/buy an already ground nutmeg nut, some terpenes are volatile.

Heat water, sugar and nutmeg altogether on a slow fire in a pan until sugar dissolves. It takes roughly a minute or two over the boiling point to give a good heating to nutmeg inside the syrup. While boiling, take it off from fire a few times to make round moves of the pan for faster sugar dissolution. Let the resulting hot syrup rest to get a few degrees below the boiling point, give it half a minute or something, or splash a couple of splashes of room-temp water instead. Pour the syrup into tins or mugs, add rum, roughly 2 parts of rum into 3 parts of syrup, the “golden ratio”. Stir the resulting drink with a wooden stick or simply by performing round moves with a mug in a hand. Serve it right away. Squeezing a splash of lime juice into a ready mug should not harm if it is a very good lime or, better, skip the lime rather than using a doubtful lime. Enjoy!

The proper heating of nutmeg in the solution for the Flintlock rum cocktail recipe shall give color to the drink. In my case, it becomes either slightly pink or slightly yellow. It may vary because of nutmeg genetics.

CUT OF ONE’S JIB — describes one’s intention, one’s character, one’s business, nationality, whatever forms a PERSONALITY. Basically, a JIB is a foresail or a couple of such shaped in a form of a triangle, located between the foremast and the bowsprit. “Cut” means shape, and the shape of a jib helped to see a nationality of a ship and/or the origin of the boatyard, more important maneuverability and, consequently, a purpose — count it all as a “personality” or a “character” of a ship and her crew.

Sailboat Cutter Rig - cut of your jib meaning and idiom illustration - pirates of the caribbean 1666

Cut of your Jib use-case:

IMAGINE — A modern cutter-rigged pleasure yacht carries two jibs (in the picture above). You see from a distance that her inner jib is a “storm jib” settled, but the weather is fine this day. You logically conclude the boat’s purpose may be a longer journey with her next stop far beyond today’s weather. The skipper is probably not a day skipper on a day charter, but a thoughtful one or a lazy one — somewhat experienced. Some knowledge you’ve gained from the cut of the jib. Now you are in the Caribbean in 1666, and it’s time to decide if you are going to board this cutter or shoot her from a distance or maybe flee this time.

CAT-O-NINE-TAILS — often shortened to “the cat” is a multi-tailed flail (a whip) used for physical punishment, aka the Captain’s daughter. The punishment by the cats is shown here below in a few frames of animation from the POPEYE cartoon series 💥 😜 I can imagine the real cat was not that funny.

POPEYE Olive Oyl tickled by Cat-o-nine-tails
Olive Oyl got punished by “cats” on a pirate boat

CRUSH ONE’S BARNACLES — an idiom meaning to kick ass, including the usage as cursing or threatening. The underwater part of the hull of a boat is normally covered by a whole colony of barnacles, mussels, and other sea creatures. The scientific name of the process is “fouling”, and there is a whole “coral reef” underneath once you feel lazy about cleaning the boat bottom timely. If someone crushes another one’s boat in a battle, I can imagine, the barnacles and their charming coral exoskeletons shall fly broken into all directions. Well, this is the idiom.

TRIM — means well-settled, well-balanced, ready to use, in a great order. See the “shipshape” definition on this page to which “trim” is not an equality but describing the situation. As for the theme of this website, let me add yet another example that you trim marijuana buds to make them shipshape for the commercial distribution or for long-term storage.

ALL HANDS — means an entire crew without exception, including officers of any rank, including everyone, regardless of a shift, literally all people possibly available. An example of usage is allocating “all hands” for a task.

TIMBERS — is the framework of a boat, the hull.

POPEYE in Shiver Me Timbers! 1934, by Shawn Dickinson
POPEYE episode 12 named “Shiver Me Timbers!” (1934)

SHIVER ME TIMBERS — is an idiom to express a shocking surprise, including as cursing, swearing or an exclamation. When a boat suddenly touches anything significant in water, then everything and anyone inside a boat are shocked and strongly shaken as if you hit a whole iceberg. It can be a floating log or a seal bumping you (they really do at times!) either a sea bottom contacting the keel once the shallows got underestimated. Every time a hit on a hull comes loud, suddenly shaking the timbers, spreading an immediate panic. “Shiver me timbers!” is equal to “Blow me!”

WEATHER-EYE OPEN — or “keep one’s weather-eye open”, is to express the following: “be alerted”, “stay alerted”, “keep watching”, “be on watch”, “watch out”. The weather is a matter of your safety at sea, you need to keep a weather-eye open to know in advance once it’s going to change.

ANCHORS AWEIGH — is a situation in which the movement starts when an anchor is going up and starts giving weight to the chain, and it means it is clean and has already untouched the sea floor where it was lying moments before. Consequently, the boat starts the movement safely. An equivalent to “Let’s go”. Sometimes shortened to “Aweigh!”.

TACK ABOUT — is to waste time or beat it round the bush. The saying comes from “tack” a naval language term for changing the course of a ship, making the wind approach from the other side, and while performing the maneuver the bow of the boat points to the wind at some moment. Like, when your goal is opposite to the direction of the wind, you’re making way in a “Z” shape, and you tack a lot.

Tacking About and how to tack a sailboat, Maritime Slang Illustration, Credit cmw4him.org
Sailboat tacking.

This image shows a sailboat tacking. Tap on it to find credit information. Does the movement of a boat appear as if she is performing clearly a demonstration of a “tacking about” idiom? Ha, this is what you do when you tack — you beat around the bush, no less. As for my personal preference, I love going at a sharp angle to the wind because the wind is less disturbing in this position, the speed is good, and the boat sits steady in the water. But maybe a beam reach (90-degree course) is optimal as there is no need to tack too much when on a beam reach course.

What is not listed among the words Pirates of the Caribbean used?

Don’t you feel distressed that the famous “Argh” is out of the list. Of course, it is a very recognizable pirate roaring, loved by children, designers and Jesus’s birthday animators. However, the roaring, the organic sound Pirates of the Caribbean surely performed, is not yet a slang word, neither a professional terminology.

We excluded some entries of the maritime vocabulary we doubted or felt uncertain about. One of such was “Beat to quarters”, an alarm signal. When the “Master and Commander” movie starts, a young marine officer shouts demonstrating a perfect articulation: “WE SHALL BEAT TO QUARTERS!” then drums follow and the extraordinary naval discipline makes all hands stand at the positions in a minute, remember? One of the best movies on the topic, by the way; however, who on Earth can imagine the pirate ship doing the trick navy performed in the “Master and Commander” motion picture?


How to make hashish

Fri, 12/Jun/20

Hashish is possibly the oldest marijuana concentrate we know, also can be made using none of any chemical solvents neither complicated machinery. It consists of trichomes, resin and oils. Take some frosty fresh buds, rub extensively with fingers, the substance left on your fingers is hashish. This way they do hashish in India, for example, they roll it into a big damn ball once scrabbed from hands, and keep it this way. Called charas.

In some countries, like in Kazakhstan, I heard, they make it for fun with a girlfriend running all over the cannabis field, it’s a sunny day and it’s hot, she sweats, and all top contents of the cannabis flowers (trichomes and resin) stick onto her body, and then — scrub and smoke.

Making Hashish

Making hash is the extraction and preserving the psychoactive resin from the cannabis plant. This resin is HIGHly concentrated in the cannabis tops, in the buds, giving nugs their “frosty” appearance. Smaller amounts of the psychoactive resin can be also found in the leaves and trim of both male and female plants, which makes the whole idea to learn how to make hashish HIGHly reasonable, to get the use of all parts the plant — extract hashish, we all love doing it, for real, an especially when it comes to consumption. In a long run, except of that it is the aromatic and the effective way to consume cannabis, it is also the HIGHly economic way to consume cannabis. And a re-use shake, leaves and stems, all remains of cannabis plants, yes, you make hash from it too, once extracted it’s same resin as good as that one from buds (of course shake contains less resin, yet in the other case we just throw it away, instead of having finest hashish, hm?)

Hashish is notable for having less smell (almost none) when you have it your pocket, may be important. Also less smell when smoking, and it is not that far famous smell, not all people know it, if compare to regular marijuana. Another great feature hashish is highlighting is small size, one finger tip block of hashish will last for couple of days, giving you less burning side products as you dub it, because of size of one hit. You can roll it with tobacco, or dub it, or use a small pipe, or use a can of Coca Cola, the best use for Coca Cola can.

Cold method to extract Hashish at home

For this one we need a bucket or a smaller bowl (depending on how much harvest we want to “invest” into our hashish experiment), we put cold water into bucket, let’s make it half as we will need space for adding ice, so fill water with ice cubes and then we drop the quantities of bud into there.

Then you use a blender or another similar tool, whatever you prefer, eventually you crash this bud when it continuously hits ice pieces because of blender, go on way until the cocktail-margarita state. Take away the remains of green plant material, it must be floating, and then separate the desired material by filtering out with paper screens. Dry it and it’s ready.

Don’t do anything to the buds before you put them into water. Crushing or grinding it in advance will only damage the trichomes, decreasing the potency of the final product. The marijuana buds you use should be dry and cured for the trichomes give out the maximum potency (while curing the THCA which does not make you high converts into THC which makes you high, the well cured stuff is more effective).

The whole process is extremely clean and creates a pure clean product, very high in effect, whitish color, extremely tasty, no plant structure in it and no chemicals. Cold keeps trichomes brittle, so they separate easily.

For the very first experiments we suggest playing with small amounts before mastering to the bucket size full of kief. You may lose buds if anything goes wrong. Think about cocktail shaker for the start.

Kief

Kief (or Kif) is the Moroccan way for saying “hashish”, they call weed that way and they smoke weed in a form of hashish.

Kief is the most basic types of cannabis concentrates, counting the oldest history back into thousands years ago. It’s made of trichomes, which contain the highest shares of THC and other cannabinoids.

Kief’s color is from light green to golden, and to brownish, depending on the original material, the strains it is made of, it appears as a sandy or very fine grain powder pressed into a solid piece. You smoke one small piece of a half nail size by a pipe or a bong and you are already too high, these are pure trichomes. The cold method above in the end produces kief. Very tasty as soon as buds you use for the extraction also contain terpenes, and you get the terpenes well-dense in your kief, very pure, no oils inside neither plant tissue, mild in smoking and HIGH as hell.

In the standard weed grinder there is that famous “third compartment”, where the trichomes are collected while you use the grinder for grinding weed long enough. It becomes dense there, the light green and yellow powder. This is kief.