The hippy in me has wanted to try this for a while. Bhang is traditionally drunk in India during the celebrations of Holi, and is used as a way of boosting meditation and to achieve transcendental states.
This is not an easy recipe, I must be honest. It takes time and can be pretty fiddly. However, it tastes delicious, a little like chai, although as with all our recipes on here, don’t go drinking it all in one go, as this stuff is potent.
Ingredients
- 2 Cups of water
- 4 Cups of warm full fat milk.
- 1 oz marijuana (fresh leaves and flowers of a female plant is best)
- 2 tablespoons blanched and chopped almonds
- 1/8 teaspoon garam masala
- ¼ teaspoon powdered ginger
- 1 teaspoon rosewater
- 1 cup of sugar
You will also need
- Teapot and cover
- Muslin cloth
- Mortar and pestle
Method
Bring the water to a rapid boil and pour into a clean teapot, together with the marijuana (remove and seeds and twigs first.) Leave this to brew for about 7 minutes. Once brewed strain the mixture through a piece of muslin cloth. Collect the water and save. Take the leaves and flowers and squeeze between your hands to extract any liquid that remains. Add this to the collected water.
Place the freshly squeezed leaves and flowers into your mortar and add 2 teaspoons of warm milk. Slowly, so as not to spill any, but firmly, grind the milk and leaves together. Gather this pulp up and squeeze out as much of the milk as you can into a bowl. Repeat the process until you have used about ½ cup of milk.
Keeping the marijuana leaves and flowers in the mortar, add the chopped almonds and some more warm milk, and grind this in your mortar until a fine paste is formed. Squeeze this paste and collect the extract as before. Repeat a few more times until all you have left are some fibres and nut meal. This residue can then be discarded.
Combine the milk and the water that the marijuana was brewed in. Add the garam masala, dried ginger and rosewater, sugar and any remaining milk. Chill and serve!