How to Throw a Cannabis Dinner Party
If you don’t live in one of the many cities that have been hosting pop-up cannabis dinners and supper clubs, or you just haven’t made it out to one yet, recreating the experience at home with a few friends can be an easy task as long as you have a solid plan.
The most important decision you’ll have to make is exactly how you plan to incorporate cannabis into your dinner party. You can infuse the food or drinks with oil, butter or tinctures for a crowd that is more partial to edibles, or you can pair your dishes with strains that complement their flavor profile, and smoke everybody out between courses. You’ll also be in charge of making sure that everyone has a pleasant, but not overwhelming, experience. This means being deliberate about pacing cannabis consumption throughout the evening, whether it’s pre-portioned amounts of low-dose guacamole, or throwing in a CBD strain to help keep the buzz balanced. Whatever you choose, don’t just wing it. Let your guests know ahead of time what to expect.
If you’re interested in putting together your own gathering, here are some guidelines to get you started.
Figure Out the Flow
It’s up to you to curate the experience, and that means making a plan for how you want the evening to pan out. Do you want to welcome your guests in with an introductory sesh or a fresh cannabis mocktail? Can everyone just smoke willy-nilly throughout the night, or do you want to wait until the lull between courses? Is it family style, buffet style or will you be serving plated courses? You can choose how casual or formal you want to be, but have some sort of game plan in mind for your soiree.
Design the Menu
You have a lot of space to be as creative as you want with the menu. There are plenty of cannabis cookbooks that have recipes for everything from appetizers and entrees to desserts and drinks. You can find all kinds of options to suit your mood, but be mindful of the dietary preferences of your guests. Trying to cook up a vegan menu? Start with deviled lentils followed by spicy sensi potatoes and herbed couscous with an easy blueberry haze mug cake (using vegan cannabutter) for dessert. Seafood lovers can serve cannabis crab cakes for an appetizer, sativa shrimp and ganja grits for the entree and finish off with a laced lemon tart.
Whether you plan to infuse your food or smoke before, during and after courses, do some research on how to pair strains with certain ingredients based on their terpene profile so you’re not just haphazardly mixing flavors, but enhancing them.
Know Your Doses
If you incorporate cannabis into your dinner party with infused foods, do everyone a big favor and get familiar with the dosage in each dish, so that guests can eat responsibly and have a good experience. There’s a lot of information floating around to take the guesswork out of home-infused foods, but here’s a quick formula that will help you calculate approximately how much THC is in the dishes you’re making.
Skip the Alcohol
Although some people might do just fine with a glass of wine or a cocktail while consuming cannabis, it’s really just a good idea to leave it off of the menu for the evening and let the focus be on cannabis. Instead of booze, opt for mocktails or other cannabis-infused drinks like bubble tea and make sure there’s plenty of water readily available to soothe cottonmouth and keep everyone hydrated.
Set the Mood with a 4/20 Playlist
Whether you choose to go for no-brainer picks like Snoop, Wiz Khalifa, and Bob Marley or get creative with your own picks, having a solid playlist is the cherry on top of the experience. It really depends on the vibe of the night. If the dinner party is high-energy, come up with your own sativa-inspired playlist with upbeat jams, whether that’s hip-hop, EDM or rock. Or keep it smooth with a chill, indica-inspired mix with R&B, reggae or oldies. You can also search on streaming services to find playlists based on genres and moods that fit your vision.
Thankfully, there’s nothing that brings people together like a good meal or a good smoke sesh, so you won’t have to try too hard to make it a memorable night after you take care of the key elements. It’s all about the mood, the food, and the company. Once the details are squared away, your dream of hosting your own Snoop and Martha-style get-together can become a reality.
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