One thing that has been around almost for as long as hemp is fermented alcohols. Hemp was technically here first because mankind hadn’t yet learned how to create wine from grapes or beer from hops yet. Fermentation eventually was discovered though. Ever since that time, drinking ‘adult beverages’ was a vital part of life.
In the days of its initial discovery, fermented drink was important because clean water sources were not always available and there was no way to refrigerate things. That meant that drinks that were fermented wouldn’t have to be kept cold, like milk for example. Mankind grew to enjoy ale, mead, and wine. Mead is a fermented beverage made from honey and water. Honey has an antiseptic quality, so ancient mead was a healthy drink aside from also being an alcoholic beverage.
Fermentation played a key role in keeping people fed with quenched thirsts, in fact. Fermentation of dough made it possible to bake breads that would keep for long periods of time, like the Kaiser rolls that have existed in their present form for approximately three thousand years.
Fermented bread has a sweet flavor that is distinct. This flavor is an after effect of the fermentation process, but the key factor is that these breads don’t spoil as quickly as other types of bread. Just like the fermented drink, they last longer without being kept cool.
Food and drink have long existed as celebratory rituals, even in modern times we celebrate special occasions with modern drinks. We give toasts to the year past and the year ahead each New Year’s Eve. Alcohol has played a key role in social functions for as long as we all can remember.
We should explore where CBD fits into this picture because we now know that hemp has been around even longer than alcohol. What effects does CBD have on alcohol and vice versa? Can they be combined? Will CBD help curb the sharp edges of a hangover from the night of drinking before the morning of the hangover? Let’s explore the answers to these questions.
CBD In Alcoholic Beverages
CBD has been proven over and over to help reduce nausea in many people. The good news here is that when adding CBD oil in alcoholic beverages, the chances that you’ll have less of that ‘icky nausea the next day’ feeling. Some may consider that a hangover. Many people are afflicted with feeling awful the day after consuming alcohol. CBD may be helpful for these people to reduce the hangover effect.
When questioned, bartenders across the country have expressed their opinion that CBD oil really enhances the flavors of the alcohol and therefore can be an important ingredient in cocktails and mixed drinks. CBD infused drinks also give people a more euphoric experience because marijuana alone has been known to trigger anxiety in some people. Marijuana can cause paranoia that causes some people to experience more anxiety than normal. This is not an effect of CBD.
CBD works to curb anxiety, so it is quite possible that your experience will be enhanced when enjoying a beverage with CBD oil in it. The addition of the CBD enhances the cocktail effects because the CBD helps to reduce the anxiety, allowing people to relax and enjoy the moment and the experience that they are having.
CBD oil has been known to reduce stress, anxiety, headaches and much more. These are coincidentally the symptoms of an alcohol hangover. By combining CBD oil and alcohol, it may be possible to reduce these symptoms or eliminate them completely. Wouldn’t it be amazing to be able to enjoy a party more by reducing your social anxiety and combine that with enjoying the enhanced flavor of CBD infused drinks?
If you are the person who typically takes up a post in the corner of the room, with the dog of the house, and try to ignore people that you don’t want to talk to, CBD infused drinks may be just the right compromise for you. Your drink is likely to taste better too.
Another benefit of having CBD in your beverage of choice is also that you won’t taste the CBD oil or need to worry about the cocktail effects on you while taking CBD. It’s part of the drink and there is no reason you can’t enjoy yourself and be taking your CBD that helps you with what ails you as well.
How Much Is Enough?
A good rule of thumb is that if it makes you very sleepy, you’ve probably taken more CBD than you needed to. Finding the right CBD dosage can be easy, and you can check out VitaLeaf's CBD Calculator. Everyone can build up a tolerance to CBD so if you are new to it, less is more. There is also a balance that must be struck. Far too much alcohol may create a situation where you don’t feel the effects of the CBD oil in any way at all. That is certainly defeating the purpose.
Start by making sure that there is less CBD in your drink than the amount of alcohol. Start low because you can always add more until you get the desired effect over time. Too much alcohol will negate the effects of the CBD and too much CBD in your CBD tincture will cause you to be very sleepy, killing your good time before it really gets started.
A good CBD tincture recipe isn’t hard to find. A search off the inter-webs will have you making notes and saving some of your recipes in no time. There are cocktail recipes for use with CBD oil also. Learn how to make some of your favorite drinks with CBD oil added to make them even more perfect to you.
When it comes to creating CBD cocktails, the sky is the limit. All you really need is your imagination. A great place to start is with your favorite drinks already. Add a bit of CBD oil to them and see what happens. As you get bolder, you can try making new concoctions as you feel braver. Fruit drinks work well, things with splashes of cranberry, a bit of grenadine, or perhaps a sweet drink like a White Russian.
No matter what your tastes are when it comes to partaking in spirits, CBD can be incorporated into nearly anything. Just remember to start with less and increase as you see fit. It’s perfectly fine to experiment until you find the right amount. When you feel the way you desire, free of pain and euphoric without paranoia or anxiety, you’ll know that you’ve hit the mark.
It is highly advisable that you don’t do any experimentation with alcohol and CBD oil unless you have a designated driver, or that you are at home. Having a friend with you and a driver lined up to get you home is an ideal situation. Remember that the alcohol will inhibit your cognitive ability and motor skills. Driving while under the influence of alcohol is highly illegal and you could hurt or kills someone, including yourself. Don’t drink and drive.
CBD Tinctures
CBD tinctures, syrups and other combinations of ingredients are available to you by the hundreds. Searching for CBD oils will yield you many ideas but don’t forget to look at syrups as well. Syrups can be purchased in flavor options that can easily enhance and alcoholic beverages. Using a peppermint flavored syrup could be tasty in a Mint Julep, for example. There are fruit flavors, berry flavors and there are also specialized oils made for pets, with an aromatherapy twist of sorts.
Humans like things that taste good and that’s one reason that alcohol infusions of CBD are popular. The flavor of the terpenes in CBD can be overwhelmingly strong. Some people don’t care for that flavor, so when it is incorporated into something else, it makes the CBD more palatable. That enables even the pickiest of persons to be able to enjoy the benefits of CBD to enhance their life experience.
Some of the syrups are created as combinations of other ingredients which can also be beneficial for various reasons. For example, some syrups have been created to have equal parts of melatonin, the natural sleep enhancer. If you are someone who typically has a nightcap before bed, this would make a wonderful sleep aid for you, as well as helping with anxiety, arthritis aches and pains, PTSD, or any one of the many typical uses for CBD oil.
There are not a lot of alcohols with CBD infused in them yet. There is a lot of red tape through agencies that regulate such as the FDA (Food and Drug Agency). Getting permissions to add CBD into alcohol is a tricky subject presently but that will be overcome, no doubt. It’s a costly investment for the makers of such products but they see the potential as well as the need. Filling a niche is the way to make profits.
Beer may be the next best thing to come from this specific genre. CBD infused beer will likely be the next big business to explode from the CBD industry. These products will be relegated to using CBD derived from industrial hemp plants. Regulations are still being determined as the CBD industry is still in its infancy.
This baby is only taking its first steps, so to speak. In another twenty years, it’s likely that CBD infused products will be the norm. Frankly, this may be just exactly what people need to create a planet that is happier and calm. The planet could use more of that. You will probably be buying CBD infused bread at the grocery store in twenty more years. CBD infused ice cream will help you get through your break-up and you’ll feel a lot better far more quickly than your grandmother used to when she ate a half gallon of it to get over a bad day.
The Future of CBD
Within the next few years, it’s highly likely that you’ll be purchasing more and more alcohol products with infusions of CBD oil. Thanks to research, we know there is no CBD hangover, so we know that it can lesson an alcohol hangover. The availability of these products is going to simply explode onto the scene.
Beer will likely be available in every convenience store with CBD as an ingredient. You’re likely to see this happening in the next five to ten years, at most. Foods with CBD enhancements will become available as well. You may even see a section of your local grocery store where CBD products are made available and separate from other items. Just like a gluten-free section, you will see the CBD section.
Chocolates are available now with CBD in the ingredients. None of these things are commercially made yet. There may well come a day where you can buy a Hershey bar, infused with CBD. More and more food and beverage experimentation is being done with CBD products. It will likely become more regulated as this happens, but more products will become available to you when this happens.
For now, you can make your own products at home with the CBD oils that you purchase separately. You can buy CBD online or in person at a local shop. Almost every city in American now has CBD oil for sale within its city limits. If you prefer having it delivered directly to your home, there are hundreds of websites that have many different products. There are syrups, tinctures, sprays, drops, capsules, and vaporization products that present many ways of introducing CBD into your system.
You can choose the ways that work best for you. There are gummy candies that have CBD oil in them. Some people prefer purchasing premade products that already include the CBD. Other people enjoy experimenting with making their own baked goods, candies, drinks and more. The beautiful thing about CBD oil is that you can’t overdose on it and you can’t really go wrong. The worst that will happen is that you’ll make yourself sleepy. If that happens, and it wasn’t your intention to become sleepy, then you know to use a little less the next time.
CBD is not addictive. You will not experience withdrawals if you stop taking CBD oil. That said, you’ll grow to enjoy the way that you feel when you take CBD because your mood will be better. Your body will enjoy less aches and pains and your focus will be improved. CBD helps you to have more mental clarity and focus, especially if you are someone who has a history of problems with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder).
Making CBD a part of your consumption in a normal way, by using it to enhance the things you are already consuming, will keep you focused all the time and allow you to take advantage of all the other helpful reasons to use CBD as a supplement. Cannabinoids are known to be an enemy of free radicals within the body. These free radicals are known to be the leading cause of cancer. CBD, being a cannabinoid, can help lower your cholesterol, your blood pressure, help balance blood sugar, reduce cortisol (the cause of anxiety and weight gain in the mid-section of the body), and enhance your overall mood in the process.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a mom who deals with work and four kids, or if you are college student under extreme stress of study and homework, or even the CEO of a multimillion dollar company that is responsible for tens of millions of dollars and thousands of employees, CBD can be exactly what you need to function on a level that can’t be achieved until you reduce stress in your life.
CBD doesn’t fix you. CBD doesn’t cure you. CBD adds to your experience of life in a positive way. CBD helps to balance your life by improving your mood and your ability to cope with day to day stresses. Many people say that they made poor choices in their lives because they made those choices under duress. If you don’t feel that sort of pressure so intensely, you have the chance to make wiser choices. You can improve your life by being more relaxed and fully in the moment with your family.
The most important parts of your life can be enhanced by CBD giving you the ability to enjoy them in a way that you’ve not been able to do before. Why not take advantage of a natural product in every way that you possibly can? Most people enjoy food and drink with friends and eating and drinking are things that we need to do in order to survive.
Incorporating CBD oil in our food and drink strictly makes the most sense. It’s an easy remedy and a simple thing to do. By reducing anxiety, social lives of most people will improve. CBD can affect you in the same way that serotonin does and might even be able to eventually help solve issues for those with bipolar symptoms. Let it enhance your mood and bring balance to an otherwise imbalanced world.
Sources:
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/120541
- https://medium.com/cbd-origin/study-finds-using-cbd-for-addiction-helps-prevent-relapses-d327513a859d