What it's like to attend a $125 marijuana pairing dinner where guests eat and get high
During a Cultivating Spirits events, the ganja connoisseurs come to you.
Wolf then visits a dispensary in the area and talks to a budtender, who has an intimate knowledge of the inventory, to find out what's good and in stock.
Wolf, who considers himself the world's first pot sommelier, will buy samples of the marijuana strains he likes most based on their smell, taste, strength, and intended effect.
After he samples the strains, Wolf sends descriptions of his top three picks to the chef overseeing the event. The chef will create a menu based on the strain profiles.
An untrained nose might think all marijuana smells like roadkill. But weed, like wine, has a variety of smells. The fragrant oils come from organic compounds, called terpenes.
Terpenes are found in the sticky resin glands that hang on the marijuana bud like crystals. The terpene content differs from one plant to another. When smoked, these organic compounds bind to receptors in the brain and cause different effects, from euphoria to sleepiness.
Understanding those differences is the foundation of being a pot sommelier.
Wolf works with the chef to harmonize the terpenes of selected cannabis strains with the flavor profiles of the food and drink. For example, a whiff of the peppery Power Plant strain might pair well with lemon-pepper chicken, while the citrusy Agent Orange strain complements teriyaki chicken.
Before the event, guests are chauffeured by limo to a dispensary, where they buy the three strains to pair with the dinner. This way, the drug never changes hands between Wolf and his clients.
When guests sit down to dinner, one of the first things they do is familiarize themselves with the plant. They break it up with their fingers, smell it, and examine its fuzzy hairs.
The group takes their first, ceremonial hit off the pipe together.
Thought most guests will be experienced smokers, Wolf walks them through how to take the perfect hit. He encourages them to light the material around the sides of the pipe, rather than torching the whole bowl, in order to preserve green stuff for the next hit.
There's even a secret to the inhalation: "It's not about how big of a hit you take, it's about how big you expand your lungs," Wolf says.
Next the chef performs a cooking demonstration before his (now captivated) audience.
For their main course, guests might enjoy a rib-eye steak with chile relleno, a glass of 2013 Malbec, and a toke of the popular marijuana strain Gorilla Glue.
Source: Bloomberg
Dessert might be a dark chocolate ganache torte with a raspberry-infused sauce (pictured below), paired with a new strain, such as Platinum Covered Girl Scout Cookies.
People come to the events for different reasons, the same way they do with wine tastings, Wolf says: "You have people who will ask questions and questions, and you have the people that just want to get drunk."
The event lasts about three hours, including the dispensary pit stop and the meal. The Cultivating Spirits experience starts at $1,250 for 10 people, or $125 a head.
Wolf hopes events like these will help attract newcomers to the burgeoning legal marijuana market. "This is how we're going to tap into mainstream America," he says.
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