2020: A new year with a brand new vision of success!
By: Callie Farmer
From Tokyo to Tennessee, New Year’s Eve hails celebrations among friends, luxurious preparations, sharing celebratory beverages and cheers with family and strangers alike, often to excess. Festivities reflect cultural norms, personal preferences, and regional customs.
How will you bring in the new year!?
Let’s consider alcohol for a moment: A cross-cultural icon, for millennia, alcohol is the prototypical celebratory libation. Why is it that at every social gathering, from holidays to periodic festivities, including birthdays and funerals, alcohol is often the beverage of choice? For some, these social gatherings carry elements of anxiety or nervous discomfort. Meeting new people, striking up small-talk with an old friend on queue, or lurching oneself into celebration mode in the midst of an otherwise normal life, can all be stressful events. The qualities of “social lubrication,” that alcohol offers may be enticing in such circumstances. Over the years, marketing alcohol to the public as “Spirits” “a good time!” and “a socially acceptable way to shut off your brain” has promoted and sustained the giant alcohol industry’s lasting dominance.
Anxiety is one of the top 3 reasons that patients report while applying for access to medical cannabis programs. Although it may be ingrained in global culture to share beverages at social occasions, might it be possible for the alcohol ingredient to be peeled away from these social customs? Might cannabis present itself as an alternative ingredient to quell anxiety inside a delicious, beneficial, and also fun concoction?
Choosing not to wake up feeling anxious, nauseous, and irritable from an alcohol hangover, for New Years 2020 many celebrators will be embarking on a new tradition: Tincture “Mock-tails!” Below you’ll find a wonderful recipe for a medicated Moscow Mule!
As always, when consuming anything with potential intoxication, be mindful of dosage! Cannabis can have adverse effects just like alcohol, including dizziness, dry mouth, itchy eyes, and delayed cognitive ability, and increased appetite.
MEDICATED MOSCOW MULE
Ingredients:
16 oz Ginger Beer (non-alcoholic)
1 T fresh-squeezed lime juice
2-3 drops of Lemon-flavored tincture (Try a 1:1 CBD/THC blend)
1 lime wedge
½ cup ice
(Optional) Copper Mug
Instructions:
Fill your preferred drinking vessel with ice, then ginger beer.
Add tincture and stir.
Top with lime juice, and stir again!
Garnish with lime wheel, and enjoy.
Special thanks to Curaleaf for this wonderful recipe!