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Many people are familiar with growing marijuana, but far less people are familiar with cultivating psilocybin mushrooms.  I have actually never cultivated magic mushrooms myself, but had two friends in college that made quite a bit of money doing this.  So I am extremely familiar with the process and have watched it being done, but I don’t have any actual hands on experience.

The most important thing that you will need to cultivate your own psilocybin mushrooms is a sterile environment.  Mold and bacteria can easily contaminate your mushroom spores and prevent them from growing properly.  So pick an area of your house dedicated to growing mushrooms and throughly clean the area and keep it clean as though its a hospital operating room.

The second thing that you will need is a spore syringe.  There are several legitimate companies out there that sell spore syringes for microscope research use only.  Magic mushroom spores are legal because the spores themselves do not contain any psilocybin or psilocin until they are cultivated into Mushroom.  So it’s legal for these companies to sell the spores, but it is illegal for someone to cultivate these spores.  This is a ridiculous, but great loophole in our perfect legal system.

You can order a spore syringe from one of the legitimate spore sample suppliers below:

Spores101 (http://www.spores101.com) - they sell spores in sterile viles for ~$15-38 depending on the strain.
SporeBank (http://www.sporebank.com) - they sell spores in sterile viles for ~$15-25 depending on the strain.
MicroSupply (http://www.micro-supply.com) - all spore viles are $10 regardless of the strain.

You will also need the following supplies:

 - Sterile Glass Jars (8)
 - Vermiculite (8 cups)
- Brown Rice Flour (3 cups)

Substrate Preparation

This step involves combining the Vermiculite (8 cups), Brown Rice Flour (3 cups) and water (4 cups) to make the substrate.  Put the Vermiculite in a bowl and pour water on top of it.  Put just enough water to be absorbed by the Vermiculite.  When you tilt the bowl you should see a little water pooling up on the sides.   Pour the Brown Rice Flour over the top of the wet Vermiculite so that it is spread evenly.

Take 8 glass jars and remove the tops of the jars.  Fill each glass loosely with the substrate mixture.  Divide the substrate mixture evenly across all the jars.  Fill each jar almost up to the top with loose substrate leaving half an inch from the top of each jar.  Fill the remaining half inch at the top of each jar with dry Vermiculite.  Shake each jar to even out the top layer of Vermiculite.

Use a nail to punch four holes on the north, south, east, and west corners of each of the jar lids.  Put the lids on the jars.  Tightly wrap foil across the tops of each of the lids to cover up the holes.

Take a pressure cooker and fill it up with about an inch of water.  Put the jars inside the pressure cooker spaced out evenly.   Close the lid on the pressure cooker and cook it for 60-90 minutes on the stove to sterilize the substrate jars.  Sterilize the needle while the pressure cooker is sterilizing the jars.

After the pressure cooker has cooled take out the individual jars.  Remove the foild wrapping from the top of each jar.  Take the syringe and inject the spores into the substrate as show above.  You should use one syringe per jar and press the needle as far down as it will go (1.5 inches). Do not touch the lid! Cover the top of the jar with foil after injecting the spores into the substrate to keep the jar sterile.

Colonization

During this phase the jars are left out so that the spores can germinate and form the mycelium to colonize the substrate.  As the time goes by, the fungus will spread throughout the jar. Eventually, the entire surface of the glass will be covered with fungus. Typically, the bottom of the jar is the last area to be colonized. Be on the look out for any contamination.   The entire colonization process usually takes around 20 days.

Growing Terrarium

Take a foil cake tray and fill it a quarter full with clay glanulate.  Take each jar and flip it upside down and bang it against the counter top to get the colonized substrate to go to the top of the jar.  Remove the lid and flip the jar upside down inside the cake tray on top of the glanulate.  Remove the jar exposing the substrate to the air, it should stand alone like a tower.  Put 2-3 jars for each foil cake tray.

Take a rubbermaid clear plastic tub and place the cake trays inside the tub, cut holes in the tub lid for air, and put the lid over the tub.  Put some water into the plastic tubs.  The tub should be stored between 72-80 degrees fahrenheit or 22-26 degrees celcius, in high humidity with a little light.  You should always see water drops on the inside of the plastic container at all times.

Normally, it takes about a week for pin heads to form if the rice cake was removed from the culture jar as soon as it was 100% colonized. It can happen after just a couple days if the network is well established, or it can take several weeks if things aren’t just perfect for the cake.

You should avoid the temptation to grow the mushrooms as large as possible. Significantly more psilocybin is produced during the early periods of growth. By letting the mushroom grow too large you are simply consuming nutrients and moisture from the rice cake for no purpose. Also, the mushrooms taste increasingly bad as they get larger. Lastly, the mycelium network in the cake can only provide so much in the way of nutrients and water to maturing mushrooms. If you let the mushrooms grow too big, they will hurt the development of other mushrooms on the cake. The mushrooms should be picked just as the cap is starting to tear away from the stalk.

Drying and Preservation

To dry the mushrooms properly you need to get the following:

- Wire Screen
- Carton of Damp-Rid or Damp-be-Gone (Anhydrous calcium chloride)
- Large, freezer size zip-lock bag

Put the mushrooms on the wire screen on top of one of the Damp-Rid sheets inside of the sealed freezer bag and allow to try in total darkness.

The reason this system works so well to dry the mushrooms is the calcium chloride is a good desiccant. It has a very strong affinity for moisture and can pull almost all the moisture out of the air. Eventually however, liquid will start to collect in the bottom of the bag. Mushrooms are 92% water by weight. This moisture has to go somewhere when the mushrooms are dried, and it will eventually find its way to the bottom of the bag.

You have several choices when moisture starts to collect in the bag. You can simply drain it out and continue to use the old desiccant. It will work, but you should be careful not to contaminate the upper side of the bag or the screen with residue from the desiccant. You do not want your mushrooms to touch the residue. For one thing, it tastes terrible, but in addition to this, the mushrooms will not dry completely. The residue will attract moisture. If the bag gets contaminated and you still want to use the old desiccant, try to pour it into a new bag without letting it touch the top side of the bag. Rinse the screen and place it in the bag.

If they are dried correctly, nearly all of the psycho-active compounds can be preserved for many months.

Dosage

Most people consume anywhere from half-an-eighth of an ounce to an eighth of an ounce depending on their bodysize and experience.  I can’t really help you out on dosage because mushrooms are like snowflakes and no two are the same in terms of potency.  Just be aware that fresh mushrooms more potent than dried mushrooms.

One final note. If you ever find that you have dosed too heavily, just remember that 90 minutes after ingestion will be the peak experience. Things will start to settle down after that. The good news is that medically you can’t overdose on psilocybin. If you remember these things, and believe them, they can help ease you through a high dose experience.

On New Years in San Francisco I saw something that I didn’t expect to see being openly served at the bar: Absinthe.

Back in the 1990’s, absinthe was all the underground rage. You couldn’t buy the stuff legally. Like marijuana, it was only available if you knew a guy who knew a guy who was willing to sell some to you at ridiculously high prices. You could even get busted for possessing the stuff. But oh, when you got some it was heaven. Except when it tasted like paint thinner. Which was most of the time.

Back then the Absinthe available was either brought into the United States from Europe (making it expensive) or bootlegged here in the United States (making it taste like crap).

The FDA recently made Absinthe legal again and now it’s being served in bars for approximately $10 a drink and sold in some liquor stores for around $75 a bottle.

One liquor store in Santa Rosa began selling it last week. Forty people waited in line before the store even opened to buy a $90 bottle.

Absinthe was banned in the U.S. in 1915 because it’s made with wormwood, a root that contains thujone. Thujone has long been considered to cause hallucinations. Famous artists, Van Gogh and Picasso, were reportedly fans of absinthe.

Wormwood is a long-lived plant, with greyish-green leaves and the flowers have a greenish-yellow tint, and like leaves give off a strong aromatic odor and are bitter to the taste.

Thujone is a toxic chemical present in wormwood and has a similar molecular geometry with THC, the active chemical in cannabis.

In 1996, Ted Breaux, a chemist from New Orleans and one of the prime movers in the absinthe revival, has developed Lucid, a real absinthe made with real wormwood that can be legally sold in the United States.

For several years, Breaux has been working with a French distillery, faithfully reproducing a number of classic absinthes based on chemical scans of the contents of vintage bottles. The scans accord with recent research and contradict the traditional theory that thujone is absinthe’s magic ingredient.

“When I tested bottles of vintage absinthe,” he says, “I was surprised to find they contained very little thujone.”

Many of the Eastern European imports, spirits with strange neon colors, advertise “ultra-high thujone” levels in some of their products, no doubt figuring that if thujone is grounds for banning, it must be a selling point.

Breaux has no respect for these colorful wannabes.

“If a maker or seller has to depend upon promoting myths and misinformation about thujone to sell a product, that is a fairly reliable indicator that said product is sorely lacking in quality and authenticity,” he says.

Earlier this year, the FDA decided to allow regulated absinthe. Three products are now available in the U.S. and have sold out quickly. This suddenly legal absinthe is a little less potent than its European cousin, but it still packs a 62 percent alcohol punch.

Lucid Absinthe is Ted Breaux’s creation which is based on the traditional, French-made Absinthe Verte (Green Absinthe). Lucid is produced in France for the Viridian Spirits Company of New York using traditional French methods.

Kubler Absinthe is absinthe made by Yves Kubler, the fourth-generation distiller of Swiss Absinthe Superieure Kubler, who got permission to import his product after five years of haggling with the U.S. government (the turning point was when the Swiss embassy intervened). All the while, he says, he refused to tweak the recipe from what his family produced in 1875.

St. George Spirits Absinthe Verte is one of the first true absinthe spirits to be available in the US, and is made right here in the Bay Area. In fact, it’s distilled by the same folks who make Hangar One Vodka (which, I can personally attest, has crazy-making powers of its own).

See how Absinthe is prepared in the video below:

Absinthe Lollipops

litabsinthe.com is now selling absinthe lollipops.

They are made with absinthe, sugar, corn syrup. There is no alcohol in them, so you won’t get drunk. However, they do contain wormwood (which, in turn, contains thujone), so each of our lollies will essentially make you feel as though you’ve taken half a shot of absinthe sans alcohol. Meaning that they go especially well with cocktails.

The major flavoring agent in most absinthe is anise, which tastes similar to licorice. If you’ve tried absinthe in the past and didn’t like it, remember that not all absinthes taste the same in the same way that not all bourbons taste the same. If you haven’t tried absinthe before, then our lollies are a fantastic way to make its acquaintance.