It’s a brave new weed world, especially here in Oregon, which has taken to legalization like a duck to water. And speaking of water, a Seattle company has found a way to put weed’s effects into liquid form.
Thanks to voters all over the country passing legal weed measures, we’re seeing new companies bringing all kinds of cannabis-based products out of the shadows and into the light of the market, including edibles, topicals, and more. And one of them, Tarukino, based in Seattle, is aiming to bring their line of get-you-high liquids to the Portland market sometime this summer—and they’re doing it by chemically stripping out the terpenes from the THC found in cannabis.
Terpenes, according to Tarukino’s Janson Lander, are what give you the munchies and red eyes. They’re also the ingredients that give cannabis its smell and taste. Tarukino’s process, Lander says, was achieved by Juan Ayala, an MIT-trained chemist who formed the company with Michael DeLance and CEO Howard Lee before bringing their first product to the Washington and Colorado markets in January of 2017.
Lander won’t say how it’s done, other than the process involves centrifuges to spin the terpenes out of the THC, but he did offer this:
“We’re using plant extracts as our source for THC and CBD,” Lander says. “We isolate the oil droplets on a very small scale and then make them water compatible, resulting in a uniform and homogeneous distribution. We do not use solvents or co-solvents.”
What resulted is Tarukino’s ability to create ciders, sparkling wines, and soda waters that will stone the people who drink them, sans the taste and smell that other cannabis-delivery vehicles, like edibles, often possess. And because they know everyone’s tolerance is different, the Tarukino team offers drinks with different and precise measurements of THC.