Cocktail WhispererPLEASE WELCOME to the LEAF
Legendary “Cocktail Whisperer” and “Cannabis Whisperer” and famed mixologist WARREN BOBROW
with weed stories, NYC club stories, and the do’s and don’ts of creating your own finest cannabis cocktails
This Wed High Noon PST (3pm EST) with our smokin’ Host CHIP Z’NUFF (Link Above!)
on the Monsters of Rock channel on Dash Radio – https://dashradio.com/monstersofrock
Much more to come on THE LEAF!! You ain’t seen nuthin yet!!
PLEASE WELCOME to the LEAF
Legendary “Cocktail Whisperer” and “Cannabis Whisperer” and famed mixologist WARREN BOBROW
With weed stories, NYC club stories, and the do’s and don’ts of creating your own finest cannabis cocktails
This Wed High Noon PST (3pm EST) with our smokin’ Host CHIP Z’NUFF
on the Monsters of Rock channel on Dash Radio – https://dashradio.com/monstersofrock
Much more to come on THE LEAF!! You ain’t seen nuthin yet!!
July 22, 2022 Published by SDZ News
Nota por Hernán Panessi publicada originalmente en El Planteo. Más artículos por El Planteo en High Times en Español.
Síguenos en Instagram (@El.Planteo) y Twitter (@ElPlanteo).
Warren Bobrow tenía apenas 5 años cuando probó un cóctel por primera vez. Fue una copita de jerez mezclada con ginger-ale y una aceituna salada en Barcelona, España, junto a sus padres. “Recuerdo que hacía mucho calor y la cualidad refrescante de la bebida ‘para niños’ se me ha quedado grabada en el cerebro hasta el día de hoy”, cuenta el mixólogo, chef y escritor conocido por Cocktail Whisperer y autor de Cannabis Cocktails, Mocktails & Tonics: The Art of Spirited Drinks and Buzz-Worthy Libations.El libro de tragos con THC de Warren Bobrow
El recuerdo de esa bebida se convirtió en una compleja, insólita e inesperada introducción a la mixología. “Aunque estuviera hecho para un niño, seguía siendo un cóctel”, apunta Bobrow.
Y, en su vida, una cosa llevó a la otra: fue lavaplatos, estudió en la escuela culinaria, se convirtió en chef, trabajó en restaurantes de todo tipo, se volvió un reputado barman y hasta fue nominado a los Spirited Awards – Tales of the Cocktail Fundation, reconocidos premios de la industria. Escribió seis libros de mixología y cientos de artículos en revistas de todo el mundo. “Ha sido una vida muy ocupada”.
Contenido relacionado: Todo lo que Necesitas Saber sobre la Cerveza de Cáñamo
Así las cosas, esa “vida ocupada” está ungida en el juego, en las pruebas y en la innovación. Pero, curiosamente, sostiene sus decisiones profesionales en base a cierta simplicidad. “Un cóctel bien mezclado no debería tener una plétora de ingredientes dispares”, reconoce.
En ese sentido, desde sus 16 años que empezó a investigar en el mundo del cannabis en las bebidas. Y aquel puntapié inicial también estuvo sujeto a una especie de carambola: de adolescente, compró unos brownies de faso horribles en el Washington Square Park de Nueva York. Llegó a su casa, los pasó por la licuadora, les tiró encima un montón de licor de chocolate y helado de chocolate. Y… ¡Boom!
“Estaba con unos amigos y quedamos muy drogados y borrachos”.
En su momento, cuando escribió su primer libro, Apothecary Cocktails: Restorative Drinks from Yesterday and Today, publicado en el año 2013, su editor de aquel entonces no le permitió incluir temáticas cannábicas.
Con el tiempo, esa tendencia se fue revirtiendo y el cannabis fue tomando un lugar más preponderante en su bibliografía.
Pero su vínculo con el cannabis no se dio en su etapa investigativa, sino que tiene una ligazón atávica: su abuelo tenía una botánica en la que fabricaba productos farmacéuticos. “No eran más que aceites de serpiente, pero yo siento que hay una correlación”, confiesa.
Entre los cócteles con cannabis más populares se yergue el Mezzrole, que se vende exclusivamente en California, Estados Unidos.
¿Qué es el Mezzrole? Una combinación de pequeñas limas del Caribe francés en un puré, mezclado con un toque de vinagre japonés en una versión ácida y herbácea. Una base de jarabe de jengibre muy picante de Pickett’s oriundo de Denver, Colorado. “El mejor concentrado de cerveza de jengibre del mundo, y he probado muchos durante mi investigación”, señala.
Contenido relacionado: Conocé ‘La Casa Grande’, el Restaurante Cannábico Más Mágico de El Bolsón
El cóctel sigue con una base de Agricole de 100 grados, una creación artesanal de nanotecnología de THC. Eso incluye unos 10 miligramos de THC, de una cepa llamada Hippie Crasher.
“Es un trago realmente revolucionario y repleto de terpenos”, confiesa.
A la sazón, el Mezzrole es una creación de Bobrow cuyo objetivo es dejar re loco a sus bebedores. “No quedás destruido, pero no es muy diferente a la versión social de fumar un porro. Eso sí, sin el molesto humo que anuncia tu presencia”, asegura el mixólogo.
Y continúa: “Quería construir un cóctel de THC que te permitiera llevar adelante todas las interacciones sociales de la planta sin condenarte al ostracismo social de los no fumadores. Estoy ofreciendo la experiencia completa del cannabis en un cóctel bien construido, que realmente huele como una flor de cannabis bien curada”.
Entre los tragos con cannabis más arriesgados aparece el que hizo durante su aparición en Viceland. “Me pidieron que hiciera un cóctel de CBD/THC que pudieran sentir”.
Allí, envalentonado por la sugerencia de la producción, mezcló una botella de whisky bourbon puro de barril con una porción de zumo de naranja asada, pomelo rubí con amargo de angostura y refresco italiano de naranja. Además, le agregó unos 250 mg de THC y CBD.
“Se encendieron un poco”, bromea Warren.
Inminentemente, su libro Apothecary Cocktails está por llegar a su quinta reimpresión.
Sin embargo, no todas son buenas noticias para Bobrow: “La parte mala es que me incluyeron en la lista negra de la industria del licor, por lo que hubo una gran animosidad y miedo hacia mí. Injustamente, la verdad. Pero ese fue una especie de final para mi carrera. Aunque, en abstracto, no fue lo que acabó con mi carrera”.
¿¡Cómo!? ¿Warren Bobrow se retiró de las barras?
“Tuve que hacerlo por mi salud. Engordé mucho trabajando como embajador de marcas de bebidas alcohólicas artesanales fuera de los establecimientos y como juez de ron para el Ministerio del Ron y el Rum XP. Mi trabajo consistía en emborrachar a la gente con los mejores licores del mundo, con las recetas de mis libros y la experiencia que me proporcionaba el hecho de trabajar para Chris James en el Ryland Inn como ayudante de bar”, devela.
Contenido relacionado: Alimentación, Cannabis y Paranoia con Narda Lepes
“¡No es un trabajo fácil!”, tira, entre chistes, a sus 61 años.
En la actualidad, Warren dirige la empresa productora de Klaus, una bebida ready-to-drink infusionada en cannabis, y despunta el vicio de la divulgación escribiendo con regularidad para las revistas Skunk, Cannabis Cactus y Different Leaf.
—La primera vez que bebiste un trago con cannabis fue durante aquella anécdota que contaste en la que tenías unos 16 años. Ahora bien, ¿cuándo fue la última?
—Mmmhhh… La última vez fue la otra noche. La experiencia fue, justamente, con Klauss, mi bebida. No quería beber ninguna de las aguas carbonatadas con sabor a caramelo, ni los jarabes. Son demasiado dulces, no me gustan. Por eso mi bebida no es dulce, ni mucho menos: es ácida y bien equilibrada.
Mientras tanto, el universo de la coctelería profesional mira con cierto recelo el mundo del cannabis. Es que, por estos días, el consumo de THC mezclado con bebidas alcohólicas es ilegal en Estados Unidos (a excepción de California). Por eso, sus tragos no están disponibles en los bares norteamericanos.
Contenido relacionado: Cocinar con Marihuana: una Guía para Principiantes
Entre sus próximas creaciones, Bobrow planea hacer una nueva versión del clásico Zombie, un cóctel compuesto por diversos tipos de brandy y ron mezclados con diversos tipos de jugos frutales. El cóctel contará con detalles provenientes de una cepa sativa que “hará que quieras bailar bossa nova”.
En su caso, el famoso mixólogo consume cannabis de manera medicinal porque padece de glaucoma y la marihuana le “preserva la visión”. Asimismo, reconoce que le gusta “estar re loco” porque le hace “sentir inspiración” y le permite escribir, abrir el cerebro y, según afirma, desbloquear su tercer ojo. “Por varios motivos, el cannabis forma parte de mi vida”.
The post Conocé a Warren Bobrow, el Famoso Mixólogo Norteamericano que Hace Tragos con THC appeared first on High Times.
I used to live up in Maine for several years. It’s where I fell in love with the seacoast, fish that smacked of the ocean- freshly plucked from the sea. Oysters when I could afford them were not like the ones I’d tasted around the country. These were fresh, without being shipped fresh. Back in the 1980s when I lived in Maine it was a very different place. Sure, we all smoked weed, but it was not legal yet. And if you should get caught with some, the penalty was unkind and inappropriate at best. But as I remember, the quality was amazing. Certainly not like the gassy strains I was accustomed to smoking in New York City, or the fruit salad strains out West. These terroir-driven farms were all over and each had their own history. I can only imagine the quality today, given the legality of the plant in Maine. That’s where talented cooks like Zack Squier come into the picture. He is a classically trained chef, that is for certain. And with his love for the plant, he has unleashed the benefits of good ingredients, simply prepared with love into a format that includes solventless THC. I’d say that’s a win/win for those of us who value quality over just getting stoned.
With that said, may I please introduce Zack Squier… Cannabis Flavorist and Alchemist.
Please tell me about yourself. Where are you from? Where’s home now? Why Maine?
I’m Zack Squier, Founder & Chef of Squier’s Specialty Edibles. I was born in York, Maine before moving to Sierra Nevada, where I grew up until entering high school. I moved back to the east coast in 2006 and have been living here since. I fell in love with Maine as a young adult, moving to Kittery at the age of 23, before making my way up to Portland where I currently live and where my company is based.
I chose to stay in Maine because I love the overall vibe here, Portland especially. It’s the perfect place for me and has what a big city offers, just fun-sized. The food is on another level, with a killer music scene and top-tier cannabis culture to boot.
Another reason I love Maine is the community. Everyone is proud to be from Maine and it’s for a good reason. From the beautiful summers on the ocean to the cozy winter season in the woods, the tranquil state offers everything I look for in a place. I’m happy to call Maine my home.
Where did you go to learn about culinary arts? Why cannabis? Who taught you?
I began working in restaurants when I was 13, washing dishes at a short-order breakfast joint on the weekends. From then on, I continued down the industry path, working in numerous restaurants under great chefs, learning as much as I could while having as much fun as possible (maybe a little too much fun). I gradually made my way up the ranks from dishwasher, to fry cook, grill cook, sous chef, to executive chef, eventually opening a restaurant, Umami, I was part owner of in Northwood, New Hampshire.
The restaurant industry is also where I was first introduced to cannabis. Smoking behind the dumpsters with the older line cooks and getting into trouble. At that time, cannabis wasn’t as accepted and mainstream as it is today. To be honest, I didn’t really start taking cooking seriously until I was around 20 years old and around that same time is when I began to realize how special and misunderstood the plant was. Whether people used cannabis for the numerous mental or physical benefits or just to let loose, it was fascinating to me. I was inspired to explore all the different ways it could be consumed and played with, creating infusions, and experimenting. I knew whatever I was going to do in life, I wanted it to involve the magic of food and cannabis.
Tell me about your company. What do you do?
At Squier’s Specialty Edibles we specialize in cannabis-infused drink mixers and beverages. What sets us apart from other edible-focused companies is that our ingredients are our main priority. We make our products from scratch with 100% real fruit, organic blue agave, fresh squeezed citrus, and solventless hash rosin.
Being a chef, I didn’t like how I had to compromise my everyday eating habits if I wanted to consume an edible. I desired to provide people with a product that had just as much passion and integrity into the food ingredients as the cannabis used. It made zero sense to me why companies take cannabis – that growers and extractors spent months carefully producing and curating – and infuse it into terrible food ingredients, pumped with artificial flavors and food coloring. It doesn’t do the plant justice and that’s where we strived to do things differently.
Working in the restaurant industry for many years, I witnessed firsthand how bad alcohol abuse can get and how it can negatively affect people’s lives. I myself had my troubles with it. We’re offering people an alcohol-free alternative, whether they are sober from booze and want to consume an adult beverage, or if someone just doesn’t want to deal with a horrible hangover the next day. An ideal option for those following a “Cali Sober” lifestyle, our cannabis-infused mixers are made for every canna-consumer as you can customize your dose by adding a little or a lot: micro to macro.
Do you have any ideas for cocktails with your product?
We regularly release delicious recipes and always showcase unique ways to use Squire’s product. We design our elixirs to be able to easily add your preferred dose into sparkling or still water, but we encourage people to get creative with them. They can also be baked and cooked with, allowing you to enhance any dish.
Whether that be a craft canna-cocktail, an infusion into a homemade ice cream, baking into a batch of brownies, infusing a sauce for wings, or simply adding a tablespoon to your nightly tea before bed. The possibilities are endless! Use in any recipe that could use a little fruit “punch”.
What is your passion?
My passion is food – I love creating it, sharing it, and eating it. Food has been a constant for me and legitimately what my life has revolved around for almost two decades. Food is life and it ties directly into beverages. When I think about why I love working in the food and beverage industry, it’s because of the way it brings people together. No matter our differences, we all eat and drink. Every culture has different cuisines, dishes, and techniques. It’s truly fascinating and you can never stop learning!
Cannabis and food are similar in this manner. They both have a beautiful way of uniting us, whether it’s a joint being passed around in a circle of strangers or sitting down to enjoy a meal cooked with loved ones. By combining two of my passions, food, and cannabis, I’ve truly found my purpose, which is to create a product that helps others and connects the community.
Follow on social media: https://www.instagram.com/squiersedibles/ – https://www.squiersedibles.com/
Warren Bobrow: Please tell me about yourself. What are you striving for in your professional career? What differentiates your dispensary from others?
Courtney Caron: I am a co-owner of The Artist Tree – Fresno. I am also the Founder of Adamant Law Group, a cannabis centered boutique law firm focusing on the representation of cannabis retailers, which led to me meeting the founders of The Artist Tree and co-owning The Artist Tree Fresno!
Professionally, I wear many hats. Whether engaging in the practice of cannabis law in California, consulting out of state, or checking customer IDs at our Fresno location (my favorite pastime), I strive to promote the normalization of cannabis use. As a retail store co-owner my main objective is to ensure that each customer, we welcome through our doors is provided with a unique retail shopping experience that is free from pressure and stress. Our ultimate goal is to provide an environment where all of our customers feel welcomed, appreciated, and safe. Because our business model is so unique and truly a community benefit in itself, I would love to see an Artist Tree retail store in every major city across the state of California and the US, giving artists one more platform to present their creations.
Warren Bobrow: What kind of research did you do to establish an interior design? Did you work with an architect? What kind of materials did you utilize?
Courtney Caron: The Artist Tree’s original concept was created in 2018 for the city of West Hollywood’s retail application process. Founders Lauren Fontein, Avi Kahan, Mitch Kahan and Aviv Halimi understood that West Hollywood celebrates the arts in so many ways, and we felt that the first cannabis retail store in West Hollywood should too. Unlike the lackluster, windowless dispensaries of days past, focused solely on cannabis, The Artist Tree is as much an art gallery as it is a store. It highlights and enhances the vibrant art community by showcasing a carefully curated mix of local artwork from established and up-and-coming artists.
Our design aesthetic was created by renowned architectural firm Retail Design Collaborate (RDC). Materials incorporated in our design include glass display cases, light colored wood flooring and shelving, custom metal flower tables, custom metal art easels, bright but soft lighting and an open floor concept. Most notably, at both the Fresno location and West Hollywood location we feature a large glass cube where clones are grown and sold.
Warren Bobrow: What are your six and twelve month goals? What kind of obstacles do you face along the way? How do you anticipate removing those obstacles?
Courtney Caron: Within the next 6 months, The Artist Tree plans to open their Oxnard location and their El Sobrante location. Additionally, we hope to bring more awareness to cannabis consumers of our West Hollywood consumption lounge.
Within the next 12 months, we hope to find additional opportunities for retail in California and start to expand beyond the CA borders. We’d love to celebrate art and cannabis across the US.
Obstacles we typically encounter include slow moving municipalities, community push back related to cannabis in general, and more recently, the recession. We tackle slow moving municipalities by being extremely organized and prepared to hit the ground running on all of our projects. We are typically the first retail store to open in most jurisdictions where we hold a license. We try to keep a wide open line of communication, and always welcome dubious municipalities and community members to visit one of our galleries across the state. Tackling a recession can be a bit trickier. The Artist Tree always offers daily deals on top quality products for our customers. This helps even the most budget conscious consumer purchase safe, tested, quality cannabis.
Warren Bobrow: Do you work with local artists? Who are they? What are their mediums?
Courtney Caron: In each Artist Tree location, we showcase art created by artists from the community where the store is located. Artists may submit their art for any of our locations on our website here.
In our Fresno location, our first art installation featured paintings and photography by Joan Sharma, Nicolas Rattaire, and Lance Anderson.
Warren Bobrow: What is your passion?
Courtney Caron: I am extremely passionate about serving the local communities where we operate. Developing and implementing Community Benefit Plans in each community brings both me and my partner Lauren Fontein great joy. Whether donating funds, conducting in-kind donation drives, or volunteering our time with deserving non-profit organizations, we are passionate about improving the lives of others in a meaningful way. At the core of The Artist Tree is the celebration of the arts. Whether performing arts or fine arts, we are passionate about promoting the creativity present in each of our communities.
For those of you who don’t know my own professional background in Food and Beverage, all you have to do is spend the better part of several decades working your way from the bottom up. In my case, that meant starting as a pots and pans “engineer” better known as a pot-scrubber, then graduating to the exalted place known as the dish sink. After languishing in front of a soapy sink full of greasy dishes for a couple of months, my path to the line… (That’s what we call the actual place where cooking is done in the professional kitchen…) And then, if that wasn’t enough education after college, I took it upon myself to become a bartender, from bar-back on up. Thank you to Chris James for seeing to my education become something actually tangible.
To really learn the food and beverage business, it’s essential to make yourself as well-trained as possible so you can do anything that needs to get done. From taking out the trash to making drinks, this is the way that you become essential to your employer. Otherwise, you’ll be washing dishes for the remainder of your restaurant career. And no… When you graduate from culinary school you are not a chef. Period.
The grunt labor thing in a restaurant was not where I wanted to be for very long. Fortunately, the dish sink was a short-lived adventure into doing really hard work. Manual labor if you will. Which framed the next forty or so years of my life into the person I am today. Working hard, doing something I love. That’s the key to life in my opinion. But that’s just my path, the one of Sara Stewart is quite succinct and I know she is going places. Read her words, Sara is a success story waiting to be discovered, yet again.
Warren Bobrow: Please tell us about your journey into cannabis and how you got into cannabis hospitality.
Sara Stewart: My initial journey into cannabis started in 2019 at Lowell Cafe, the first true cannabis restaurant in America, serving cannabis alongside food, coffee, juice, etc. I had been in the restaurant, nightclub, and event space for almost 15 years, working for some of the most successful companies in Los Angeles, and I was ready for a change. Although I had been a cannabis consumer for most of my adult life, I was unfamiliar with the legal market. I learned METRC from a hospitality viewpoint, which was incredibly unique. I had also been documenting several of the pain points this kind of business underwent, and I wanted to help others avoid some of these headaches in the future.
Upon leaving Lowell Cafe, I started Highspitality to consult for other lounges and eventually joined Green Thumb Industries full-time as a lounge specialist. My time with GTI opened the door for me to help lobbyists and public officials create some of the regulations in new markets, such as Las Vegas. In October of 2021, I opened my second lounge in Mundelein, Ill., making it the first licensed cannabis lounge east of the Mississippi River.
Warren Bobrow: Why do you think consumption lounges are the future of cannabis?
Sara Stewart: We know Americans are consuming more cannabis than ever before, and taxes from the sales of Cannabis are surpassing alcohol in many legal states. As someone who is incredibly passionate about hospitality and customer service, I believe that what we are experiencing now is prohibition 2.0.
In my opinion, cannabis lounges will play an important role in normalizing cannabis use, just as bars did for the reintroduction of alcohol post-prohibition. They will provide a social place for safe cannabis consumption and educational opportunities for curious consumers. Although cannabis usage looks much different than alcohol, I hope onsite consumption will elevate the cannabis industry by implementing hospitality-driven operations that create a familiar environment replicating a social club or lounge.
Warren Bobrow: What concepts do you think will define cannabis hospitality and lounges?
Sara Stewart: I believe the defining concepts in lounges will be hospitality-driven first and cannabis second. Most cannabis companies buy retail buildings with additional square footage and assume they can just “build a lounge” attached to it. Imagine buying a liquor store and then trying to build a cafe or restaurant out the back — you simply wouldn’t do that.
Many lounges that aren’t open yet are grappling with how to make money, struggling to build out unique customer experiences, and aren’t working with their local governments to create and implement appropriate and necessary regulations. This is a major issue, and in my opinion, the concepts that will win won’t just focus on cannabis as their main offering.
Warren Bobrow: What do you want people to know about visiting a lounge for the first time?
Sara Stewart: Start low and go slow — you can always take more, but you can never take less.
If the rules or process seems unnatural or different, it’s most likely a regulation that the company has to comply with (for example, we don’t want to charge cannabis and food on separate checks, but we have to).
Lastly, do some research on the lounge you’re visiting. Every lounge is different; some allow you to bring your own products while others prohibit it and require reservations, so you should know what to expect upon arrival. Keep in mind these models are new and destined to change often.
Warren Bobrow: What are your top 3 favorite cannabis products and why?
Sara Stewart: I love flower, and I’m typically a Sativa diva, so I have to say Lemon Trill by Lumpy’s in California. I also can’t live without the Snoozeberries Chocolate Bar from Incredibles and my long-time love, Cereal Milk by CBX.
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Feature photo credit: Sara Stewart
Warren Bobrow fell in love with cannabis long before he took his first sip of alcohol. But when talent with mixing earned him the moniker, “The Cocktail Whisperer,” alcohol took center stage in his career. As Bobrow puts it, “I was a pretty established drinker—people would come to me and say I made them the best drink they’d ever had.” But swearing off the hard stuff in 2018 has allowed him to bring his true love to the fore without sacrificing his passion for intoxicating concoctions. Now, the only cocktail whispering Bobrow does involves cannabis, his go-to secret weapon for the perfect drink.
Before Bobrow became a world-renowned cocktail connoisseur, his dream was to become a chef. But as he is quick to point out, he started from the bottom up. “I’ve worked plenty of the least glamorous jobs in the industry,” he says, recalling his first job washing dishes in York Harbor, Maine. “Working as a dishwasher teaches you to work hard and be diligent and treat people exceptionally well, because you never know when they’ll come back into your life. Always, always be nice to the dishwasher.”
The grunt work paid off when Bobrow trained as a chef and started his own fresh pasta manufacturing business. He lost the business in 1989 after Hurricane Hugo, and was deep enough in debt to accept the necessity of a twenty-year detour in banking–though he hated every minute of it. In 2009, he took the chance to reinvent himself. “I took some classes with the New School in food writing and became a published food writer,” says Bobrow, referencing his tenure with publications such as Saveur Magazine. “Then that led to six books on cocktail making, and it seemed to work out very, very well for me.”
According to Bobrow, his foray into writing didn’t necessarily turn down the pressure of the service industry. “My publisher only gave me a month for each of my books,” he says, cheekily suggesting that if you can’t write 160,000 words in a month you have no business in publishing. “But I’ve been writing magazine articles all over the world, so that’s easy for me.”
Asked how he comes up with his recipes, he just shakes his head. “I dreamt them up. I sleep on my successes—everything that I come up with is delicious, I just can’t explain it.” Of course, not all of his material was dreamed into existence—in his 2013 book, Apothecary Cocktails, Bobrow drew on the centuries-old history of herbal concoctions for curing ailments. He argued that drinks like the Milk Thistle Spritz or Lemon Balm Gin and Tonic do more than just intoxicate—they heal.
When a promotional tour for one of his books took him to the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum, which featured a temporary exhibit on the history of medicinal cannabis, something clicked. He began to see that his beloved potions didn’t need to involve liquor, a substance which no longer felt medicinal to him. “After seeing the exhibit I knew immediately what I was going to do with the rest of my life,” he says. The deal was sealed when he enrolled in the New Jersey medical program and successfully used cannabis to treat a terrible case of glaucoma that had been plaguing him for years. In 2016, Fair Winds Press published Bobrow’s Cannabis Cocktails, Mocktails & Tonics.
Now on its tenth printing, the book contains tasting notes and descriptors that illuminate the medicinal and recreational aspects of the plant. Recipes often combine cannabis with alcohol—though with caution—but are focused on cannabis. In addition to cocktails and mocktails, the primer contains basic recipes for butter, oils, tinctures, and creams, followed by a plethora of fun and healing ways to apply the infusions.
Of course, making a craft cannabis cocktail from scratch is a whole lot of work, and it’s perhaps best left in the hands of the master himself. So it’s no surprise that as cannabis beverages storm the market, Bobrow is throwing his hat in the ring to show us how it’s done. Enter Klaus, a craft cannabis cocktail company named for Bobrow’s Internet-famous traveling “1850s German drinking gnome,” who apparently now agrees that cannabis cocktails are to be preferred.
“It’s not like one of those seltzers that, you know, people are chugging to get stoned,” Bobrow insists. “This is a carefully composed craft cocktail that’s made with love and non-industrialized ingredients.”
The cocktail currently on offer is called the Mezzrole, named for Mezz Mezzrow, a jazz clarinetist who earned his notoriety in the Swinging 20s for being the weed dealer to Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, and Bix Beiderbeck. The ingredients include Pickett’s Hot N’ Spicy ginger syrup, Les Vergers Boiron Lime, and Fee Brothers Bitters. And Bowbrow is careful not to offset the medicinal aspects by overloading the drink with sugar. “I’m very sugar-conscious,” Bobrow says. “Added sugar is a big problem in the liquor industry, so we’ve only added 6/10 of a gram of sugar.”
And of course, as the star of the show, the cannabis is just as lovingly selected. “I’m using an emulsion created by a company called Virtuosa in Oakland, California, a cannabis-infused nanotechnology based on coconut oil,” he says. “It’s a beautiful product that gets you really high.”
For the time being, California is the only market that can benefit from his potions, and even then supplies are limited. “This is carefully, carefully crafted with small run, small producer products that are not industrialized—we’re not making 20,000 cans, we’re making 5,000 cans,” he says. Though he hopes to increase his reach eventually, at the moment Bobrow is content to be clamored for. “There’s nothing wrong with saying that you have the best tasting beverage that no one can buy,” Bobrow says. ”But eventually the market is going to demand it.” At least Bobrow hasn’t left us completely without recourse while we await the day we can pop open a can of Klaus. In the meantime, we can flip open Cannabis Cocktails, Mocktails & Tonics to try our own hand at a cannabis concoction—if only to better appreciate the beverage when it arrives.
I’m fortunate to have had the opportunity to visit Denver a few months ago. While I was participating in the Cannabis Marketing Summit (I sat on two panels), I was able to reach out to some very interesting people in the cannabis business. One person, in particular, stood out to me, probably because of his New Jersey roots- I still live in New Jersey, born and raised. Chris Chiari has the ambition and the fortitude to do something completely different from anything I’ve ever encountered in my cannabis journalism career.
What he has achieved is the Patterson Inn; The intrinsic synergy between history, continuity, and political balance makes this story worthy of your attention. Of course, stigmas play deeply into this sage of hospitality vs. City Hall, but that’s what makes the Patterson Hotel passage more than just a metaphor. The people who lived in this house are part of the story of politics and rules.
It is the circumstance and the candor of doing what you love, even if the career is in cannabis. Someday it won’t matter so much, and these stigmas will be a thing of the bad old days. I know Chris is on his way to that place of success, doing what he so clearly loves.
Thank you. WB
Warren Bobrow: Please tell me about yourself. Where are you from? Living now? Tell me about The Patterson. What brought you to cannabis?
Chris Chiari: A kid from New Jersey, raised in New York City and currently living in Denver. I own and operate the historic Patterson Inn, the keystone property of The 420 Hotels portfolio and the first legally licensed cannabis consumption lounge attached to a hotel as an amenity. I’m also the producer of the documentary Public Enemy Number One, a film about the U.S. War on Drugs, which won the Seattle Film Festival for best U.S. Doc in 2020 and is available on Amazon Prime, Tubi and Pluto.tv.
Back in my mid-twenties, after the removal of a large melanoma a doctor told me, “Don’t make long-term plans.” After a decade of staying one step ahead and removing over 70 moles, I heard the reverse. Within weeks of this new lease on life, I was in Denver for the first time standing on the street in front of what’s now the Patterson Inn. At the time it was this abandoned castle. The combination of its curb appeal, the address over the door, ‘420,’ and a commitment that the next chapter of my life would focus on cannabis inspired that moment. And on March 7, 2011, I pointed up to the house and said out loud, “I’m going to turn you into a cannabis bed and breakfast!” I missed out on buying the property by two weeks.
For 22 months from March ‘11 – January ‘13, I was on what can only be called an adventure of a lifetime. Over 115,000 miles by car and another 100,000 in the air brought me coast to coast and a lap around the world. At every stop I started all conversations with an image, a simple card. But the King of Clubs holding a bong proved an effective conversation starter and the generosity of cannabis and its community welcomed me and graciously informed me about a plant I’d consumed for years by that point, but a process and economy that I had never been exposed to before except as a consumer. From cannabis cups and contests, to bong and pipe trade shows, and down the occasional dirt road to see legacy operations, I learned about and was exposed to some amazing, innovative, and bold entrepreneurs. I learned about strains and terps, made bubble hash in the forest and experienced cannabis as it was transitioning from purely legacy markets to the emerging legal markets, we have in many states today.
I finally made the move to Denver in January of 2013 and over the last nine-plus years have been active in local politics serving in several leadership positions in the county Democratic Party. I spent eight years on the board of Colorado NORML and served as both deputy director and interim executive director. You will also find my name listed as one of the five-person petitioning committee for the successful 2015 Denver initiative that decriminalized psilocybin.
In 2016 an almost unrealistic life ambition became a reality when I was issued an owner’s badge in the regulated Colorado cannabis industry and then in 2018, an idea inspired by a house became an opportunity when the property at 420 E. 11th Avenue in Denver was once again on the market. Renovated and turned into a boutique hotel by the owners who had beaten me to the property seven-year early by just two weeks, the purchase put me back on the path to taking the hotel and adding the most exciting and unique amenity in hospitality, the addition of a licensed cannabis consumption lounge.
A multi-time, multi-state failed political candidate, I’ve made a career of doing marketing and messaging for startup companies and I’ve never been afraid to lean into the arena on policy and issues. Putting my career experience, as well as an over 30-year passion for cannabis into this company, I’ve made the work of normalizing and de-stigmatizing cannabis possession and consumption my life’s work for over a decade. The addition of this first cannabis consumption lounge attached to a hotel is meant to be just the beginning and where I once was told to not make long-term plans, I can share today that there is a long-term plan, and it includes expanding The 420 Hotels from our first keystone location in Denver to a dozen gateway cities in America and around the world.
WB: What are six and twelve-month goals?
CC: Within the next six months, I intend to have the first consumption lounge attached as an amenity to a hotel open to guests at the Patterson Inn. The twelve-month goal includes further improvements to the property, including the kitchen and the addition of two more guest rooms. After that, the intention is to expand to gateway cities across the country and around the world.
What obstacles are you facing? How do you anticipate removing those obstacles?
International standards around clean air in a smoke-filled environment have created the biggest obstacles. The greatest obstacle has also been the greatest learning experience. Thinking through and working through the challenges with the design of the HVAC system has been the biggest hurdle to date, but finding the solution and building a design that can grow with the company, has offered a great degree of reward as well.
WB: Who is your mentor?
CC: I have had three great professional influences in my life. My boss in an internship in my third year (of five) in college, Bobby Clark. My boss during my last year in school, Calvin Gould. And a securities attorney who imparted way more than even he may have realized, Richard Lane.
Bobby offered me an opportunity, but he told me to go out into the real world and take a risk first. I’ve never looked back.
Cal was retired and near the end of his life. I became the assistant manager (great title; there were only two of us) for what was left of his supermarket beer & wine business. He’d also have me drive him from Worcester to Tanglewood every Thursday in August and come pick him up on Monday. I remember the first drive; he told me he was going to teach me everything he knew about negotiating the close on commercial real estate. Said the world was changing, and I’d never get to use it, but maybe it would be good to know. The world has changed, it has proven good to know, and I think of Cal every closing, and I smile.
Richard was just kind. It wasn’t anything specific he imparted. Maybe in sharing the true room available for creativity in the structuring of a company. Certainly, that full transparency and full disclosure really do go a long way in business and in life.
WB: What kind of food do you enjoy for breakfast at your hotel?
CC: We offer complimentary sweet and savory options every day at the Patterson Inn. I order both daily. Hospitality is about the experience. We pride ourselves on offering a bed you don’t want to get out of and breakfast you’d never want to sleep in on. A typical day might include fresh baked challah French toast with strawberry compote and whipped cream or biscuits with fried chicken and country gravy.
WB: Who is your core customer?
CC: For the Patterson Inn, our most discernible guests are parents of people who live within walking distance. As one of the few hotels in the heart of Capitol Hill, we are the guest room to the neighborhood. Our other most recognizable guests are couples looking for a romantic getaway. Patterson Inn is housed in an old Victorian French chateau castle. The curb appeal and finish to the rooms (many with clawfoot tubs) give the property an air of whimsy that guests mention in reviews.
For the consumption lounge, we are pairing sophisticated, licensed, legal cannabis hospitality with four-star overnight hospitality, which the Patterson Inn already delivers. The lounge will offer guests something they currently don’t have access to when they visit the Mile High City: the ability to consume cannabis legally in a commercial business. So, for someone new traveling to our state to engage with legal cannabis for the first time, especially if they’re from a state still traumatized by prohibition, they’re looking over their shoulder. They’re looking around for that safe space. They’re still aware that what they’re doing, at least where they come from, is illegal. And that sensation, that awareness — we forget that as cannabis consumers here in Colorado, but it’s no less true still for the tourist. The consumption lounge at the Patterson is not meant to be a place to party. This is an upscale, sophisticated lounge for cannabis connoisseurs and canna-curious alike.
WB: Tell me about the cannabis lounge.
CC: We are blazing a place in history: The 420 Hotels, and our lounge at the Patterson Inn, The 420 Denver, is the first licensed cannabis consumption lounge as an amenity to a hotel.
The plan since I first set eyes on the house in 2011 was to turn it into a cannabis B&B. While the last owners beat me to the property, did the renovations, and opened the bed and breakfast, the final hurdles were still left when I bought the building over four years ago. These hurdles included: navigating through an unexpected closure and the realities of the world the last few years, the rezoning of the property from residential to commercial (required for the cannabis hospitality license), and refinancing the property with two years of the worst unexpected financials factored into the appraisal because of covid and that’s how the real world works. With all the unexpected and expected challenges, we are on pace to open the lounge by late 2022 to early 2023.
The lounge will be a sophisticated space that offers the Patterson Inn guests and annual members a chance to experience legal cannabis on their terms. We look forward to welcoming the canna-conscious and canna-curious consumers looking for a space that doesn’t require sneaking around and allows for the open and responsible use of cannabis in a safe, legal and social environment. As a bring-your-own-cannabis (BYOC) venue, we will center the experience around consumption methods and its many variations, we will have staff that is engaged and informed to help guests make good decisions with an awareness of potential effects or intensity, and we intend to focus on food & beverage.
WB: Will you do food geared to the cannabis scene?
CC: The Patterson Inn is a licensed restaurant and supports food & beverage service for the hotel guests, 12 Spirits Tavern, and will support the cannabis hospitality lounge as well. We already feature sweet and savory, made-to-order breakfast for our hotel guests, and we intend to expand this breakfast service into the lounge, as well as opening to the public for a once-a-week service we are calling our Blazy Brunch.
On a daily basis, we already produce a number of simple syrup infusions that support the craft cocktails in our 12 Spirits Tavern. These simple syrups are an easy way to offer terpenes, added to various beverage options, and will be part of our regular offerings in the lounge, along with light tavern snacks and regular specials.
Cannabis pairs well with food. The national cannabis community has a number of extraordinary chefs that have been working with pairings long before it became fashionable. Conversations with friends in this space have already begun. We intend to expand into fine dining on a regular basis with scheduled guest chef events. Since we are a BYOC venue, chefs will not be limited to our inventory but will be able to bring together the best producers of products to showcase their culinary artistry and maintain control over the experience they are looking to curate.
WB: When was the first time that you discovered cannabis? Do you remember who you were with?
CC: I remember the first time I smelled cannabis and knew it was something different. I was in NYC on the balcony of a movie theater during Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. I was in first grade.
I also remember very clearly the first time I consumed cannabis. I was with a sibling in their first year in college. It was Boston, and it was in late winter. It was the first time I used a dryer sheet tube to mask the odor. Ended up at a house party where Blues Traveler was still a house band, and the next night was in Albany to see the Grateful Dead for the first time.
WB: Tell me about the music you listen to.
CC: Live Music feeds the soul; I’ve learned that over the years. Music and cannabis pair as well as food and cannabis. At my core, I listen to jam bands mostly. Judge me all you want. I’m also an unwavering TWIDDLE fan. Grateful Dead, Phish, Twiddle, Eggy, and lespecial keep me occupied most days.
WB: What is your passion?
CC: I have committed my life to my passion: I am a cannabis consumer and a productive adult, and making that realization normal is the work I join so many amazing people in this industry and space in spreading. The normalization and destigmatization of cannabis is my passion. I also love storytelling and film and am proud to have created and produced the award-winning film Public Enemy Number One, a feature documentary about the War on Drugs.
About the Patterson Inn
Located at 420 East 11th Avenue, the Patterson Inn is a stately and distinguished National Landmark situated in the heart of Denver’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. Historically intriguing yet complete with all the comforts of modern amenities, it offers a luxurious reprieve in one of nine uniquely themed bedrooms. The Patterson Inn is also home to The 420 Hotels, the nation’s first legally licensed cannabis consumption lounge in a luxury hotel. Slated to open in late 2022, this high-end, members-only cannabis consumption club that will be merged with luxury overnight accommodations will provide a sophisticated location to consume and onsite guest service representatives who can advise consumers on safe consumption practices. For more information or to make reservations, please visit www.pattersoninn.com or call 303-955-5142.
For more on The 420 Hotels: https://the420hotels.com/
I’m not from Charleston, South Carolina. But I lived there in the late 1980s and spent Hurricane Hugo huddled with others in my former kitchen house on Charlotte Street, wondering if the roof and the rest of the home would survive the biggest storm I’d ever lived through. This experience would go on to serve as more than a metaphor for the rest of my life. Big storms followed by the loss of everything I worked hard to achieve and accomplish. Gone with the tides, just like the little story I want to recount here. In simple terms…
I am very lucky to have friends who are from Charleston. In this case, born and raised. My friend Witt Rabon is that Charlestonian (the name for someone born there, unlike myself- a Yankee Carpetbagger…) Through the guidance and friendship of Witt, he introduced me to a couple of gentlemen who look like they stepped out of a mid-1970s rock and roll band. Friends of his, Thomas Cutler and Barry Foy, are on the cusp of great success within the very business that got Barry removed from civilization for ten years. Unfair? Absolutely when you consider people convicted of major financial crimes would serve much less time behind bars. The Last Prisoner Project is their deep métier.
A calling is something you learned from experience, not just read in books. That alone gives authenticity and a little something called lagniappe. That little something extra. And what would that be?
Read on for the answers to these clues. Gentlemen Smugglers, it’s now their success story…
Cheers! WB
Warren Bobrow: Please tell me about yourself. Where are you from? How did you discover the plant? Do you have someone who introduced you to smoking in your family?
Barry Foy: My name is Barry Foy. I was born in Charleston, SC, but I’ve lived in many locations, from Canada to France to the Caribbean to NYC to the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. I grew up in a conservative Catholic family; my dad was a banker, and my mother was a nurse. My first encounter with the plant was the summer of Woodstock in 1969, right after high school graduation, when I smoked a joint with my buddy. I was the first and basically the only cannabis user in my family. Man, I loved it right away and continued smoking through my first year of college. It didn’t take me long to realize the financial possibilities, and by the summer of 1970, I was selling pot from the back of a local bar in Columbia, SC, to the GIs at Fort Jackson basic training base before they were shipped off to Vietnam. Flash forward a dozen years, and I was running the East Coast, smuggling over 250 tons valued at close to $1 billion, which, of course, led to my crew becoming the main targets of Operation Jackpot, the first Presidential Sting in Reagan’s War on Drugs. I was eventually convicted under the Kingpin statute (§848) for running a continuing criminal enterprise smuggling marijuana and hashish into the US from Jamaica and Colombia. I served 11 years in prison from 1985-1996.
Warren Bobrow: Please tell me what you’re working on right now. For whom? Where? Do you focus on flower? Do you like indoor or outdoor grown cannabis?
Barry Foy: Currently, I’m working on building the Gentleman Smugglers cannabis brand with my team members Thomas Cutler, Kevin Harrison, and Gary Latham. We are based in Charleston, SC. At present, we are launching the brand in Massachusetts with our partner Root & Bloom, a state-of-the-art facility that handles cultivation, processing, packaging, and distribution. The last two years have been devoted to picking up where we left off – bringing the brand to the people and supplying premium product, only this time legally! My focus is on the flower because all products originate from the plant. Start with premium seeds and flower and you’re going to have a premium product in the end, whatever it may be. I personally prefer outdoor when available because organic soil and natural sunlight create a superior, flavorful product.
Warren Bobrow: What kind of obstacles do you face in your business? How do you anticipate removing them? What are your six and 12-month goals?
Barry Foy: As we all know, cannabis remains illegal at the federal level. This places the burden on individual states to create regulations. This variation in laws from state to state causes obvious complications. It looks like the US Congress is close to passing legislation in 2023 that will clear up the ambiguity caused by these state-level differences. Having said that, we have an authentic story to tell, and I think it will resonate. Our six-month goal is to establish the Gentlemen Smugglers brand of premium flower and pre-rolls in the Massachusetts market. Within 12 months, we hope to launch the brand in New York and New Jersey and expand the product line into edibles, vapable concentrates, and beverages.
Warren Bobrow: What is your favorite cuisine or restaurant? Do you cook? What’s your favorite thing to prepare? Why?
I have always enjoyed fine cuisine and have a special place in my heart for the Southern specialty known as Shrimp and Grits. After spending a decade in prison and having friends who never made it out, I really savor a good meal. I love food and, having owned a restaurant in Charleston, can serve it up with the best of them! Using fresh local shrimp, heads off, I sauté them with butter and garlic for no more than one minute. The grits need to be stoned ground yellow grits cooked slowly with water and butter and finished with heavy cream. Serve the shrimp atop the grits with a side of sliced and chilled Johns Island tomatoes with a generous amount of salt and pepper. Pair this with a Belle Glos Clark and Telephone Vineyard Pinot Noir. Bon Appetit!
Warren Bobrow: What is your passion?
Barry Foy: My passion is and has remained the same for 40-plus years: to bring premium cannabis products to the masses. From the Blue Mountains of Jamaica to the Sierra Madres in Colombia, South America, I’ve always taken the high road and gone the extra mile to find and procure the best cannabis. As we developed the Gentlemen Smugglers brand, it was important to lean into the legacy of what I did so many years ago – to that end, our first Sativa-leaning treat is called High Tide, and our first Indica-leaning delight is called Low Tide, so named because the tides were crucial to smuggling. On a personal level, it’s critical to give back, and we recently partnered with the Last Prisoner Project to support ending needless incarceration for nonviolent marijuana crimes. Down the line, I want to develop specific Gentlemen Smugglers cultivars but for right now, I’m all about working with the best partners in the business to help our friends out there enjoy great flower. And you can always count on me to deliver.
Cannabis Industry Journal
By Aaron Green
In this article, Aaron Green sits down with Warren Bobrow, CEO and co-founder of Klaus, The Gnome, a cannabis beverage company specializing in terpene-forward canned cocktails.
California is the fastest-growing cannabis beverage market, according to a recent Headset report. The count of beverage product offerings in California has grown quickly, nearly doubling from 2020 to 2021. As of December 2021, there were approximately 530 distinct cannabis beverage offerings.
Mocktails have been a growing product category within the cannabis beverage segment. Klaus, headed up by Warren Bobrow, the “Cocktail Whisperer,” recently entered the California market with their ready-to-drink THC cocktail, Mezzrole, a unique terpene-forward beverage with three simple culinary-grade ingredients.
We caught up with Warren to learn more about his path to the cannabis industry and his inspiration for Mezzrole. Warren is a multi-published author of six books including “Cannabis Cocktails, Mocktails, and Tonics” and has contributed to publications such as Forbes and Skunk Magazine. After the loss of his fresh pasta business in Hurricane Hugo, he worked in banking for 20 years before reinventing himself and following his passions—becoming a bar back to bartender and master mixologist and penning his six cocktail-focused books. Warren crafted Klaus with knowledge gained from years of experience in the mixology and culinary worlds and with his strong enthusiasm for cannabis.
Aaron Green: How did you get involved in the cannabis industry?
Warren Bobrow: It was a happenstance, and it was something that I never considered before. I was working in the traditional liquor industry, and because liquor is inherently a poisonous substance, I was slowly poisoning myself and my mind with the alcohol. I made a conscious decision back in July of 2018 – I was down to Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans – and I said, “this is my last drink.” I was halfway through a Hemingway, which is absolutely my favorite cocktail to have and that’s what I was known for. That’s the drink that paved the way to a wonderful career on-premises and off-premises doing brand ambassadorship and being a named person within the liquor industry. As with all great careers, this one had to come to an end, or I was going to die because liquor was poisoning me. I was probably about 75 pounds heavier than I am right now. I just didn’t feel myself and I was going to be sick.
So, I decided to take my knowledge of cannabis, which was something that I’ve enjoyed since I was 12 years old – I am 61 now – and put it to use for me in this book, Cannabis Cocktails, Mocktails and Tonics. My first book, Apothecary Cocktails, really did pave the way. I wanted to include cannabis in my early books, but my publisher wouldn’t let me. It just wasn’t time until 2015 when I wrote Cannabis Cocktails, which is all based on the early apothecary. The inspiration for writing the book certainly was from being down in New Orleans and going to the Pharmacy Museum. They had an exhibition of cannabis in the early apothecary, and I knew immediately what I was going to do with the rest of my life. There you have it!
Green: It seems like it was a sharp cut off with the alcohol industry
Bobrow: Yes, like one day to the next, literally. It was absolute. I made the decision; I came back to New Jersey, and I never drank again. I drink a little beer and wine, but I haven’t had a distilled drink in years.
Green: How did the concept for Klaus come about? Was it something that you always had in the back of your mind?
Bobrow: The idea for creating a cannabis infused beverage came from being incarcerated in New York City for smoking cannabis in the street and being taken out of commission for 48 hours, I knew that if I was drinking a cannabis infused beverage like Klaus, which is the one that I created in California, no one would know my business. Of course, when this happened, it was in the early 2000s, so the technology and the pretense just weren’t available yet. But it did put something in my mind. If I was to create a cannabis-infused beverage using my knowledge and experience as a master mixologist, the fear of consuming cannabis would be diminished.
If you look at the book, Cannabis Cocktails, and you see the recipes, they’re not for the meek. They’re really meant for a medical community – someone who needs to really eliminate pain, if you will. Cocktails in the book started at about 250 milligrams of THC, whereas with Klaus they’re 10 milligrams, Two different stories completely!
My inspiration for creating Klaus certainly was from the gnome [Warren displays Klaus, The Gnome]. He’s a star and he’s been all over the world with me. I don’t know why I first started traveling with him. Maybe it’s because he was sitting up there up on my mantle and he told me that he wanted to go out on the road with me. I was traveling all over the world as a rum judge for the Ministry of Rum and for Rum XP. We just show up at food events. I’m a trained chef, I love going to the Fancy Food Show in New York City, and I’d meet people and they invite me out to see their places. Then I started writing for Forbes and I don’t know, my career has been up and down. I’ve tried to follow my dreams ever since I left the corporate world in May of 2009.
Green: Let’s talk about the product.
Bobrow: I just have one SKU right now, which is the Mezzrole named for Mezz Mezzrow, Louis Armstrong’s weed dealer. You can’t make this stuff up. It’s all real.
Green: First, how did you land on the flavor profile?
Bobrow: For someone who’s a rum head like myself, we used to drink rum for breakfast. That’s how you become a rum head. The Mezzrole is based on a Ti’ Punch, which is the national drink of Martinique. Ti’ Punch is usually made in Martinique with rum Agricole, which is a sugar cane-based rum rather than a molasses-based rum. It’s the freshly pressed sugar cane rum before it ferments so it has a lovely floral quality and it’s 100 proof. There’s nothing weak about it!
A Ti’ Punch is freshly squeezed lime quarters, the 100 proof Agricole – one or two ounces – and cane sugar syrup stirred usually with your finger like my old friend Gaz Regan, who’s no longer with us, used to do it. He was known for his finger stirred negronis. I would do it preferably in a clean glass and there’s no ice involved because if you’re on a sailboat, you probably don’t have ice anyway. So, it’s potent. It’s a very potent drink. That’s the basis of the Mezzrole.
The Mezzrole contains a single strain of cannabis. We used a craft, land-raised strain called Hippie Crasher. It’s an indica leaning hybrid that is terpene forward. The Mezzrole utilizes the terpene aromatics of the cannabis strain. So, we have this gorgeous French lime puree that I get made from limes that are sourced down in Martinique. They have a certain oily quality to them and they’re very pungent. They’re very citrus forward and very flavorful.
Then, I’m using a ginger syrup that’s made in what I would say is a Great Britain or Jamaican style called Picketts. It’s from Denver, Colorado. My old friend Matt Pickett, and his late brother Jim created it. Jim was the bartender for Malcolm Forbes on his yacht, the Highlander, when they had it in the waters between me and Palm Beach, or wherever they happened to be on the island. Jim crafted this incredible ginger syrup, which is really authentic. And in later years, it became the Pickett’s ginger syrup that I would use in this beverage because I’m paying homage to Matt’s brother by using his extra hot and spicy ginger syrup in here along with the French lime purée.
The final element – there are only three flavor elements [besides the cannabis] – is rice vinegar. Rice vinegar in this case is something called mirin. There are two different types of mirin. There’s the sweet mirin and then there’s the dry mirin, and Mezzrole utilizes the dry mirin. I didn’t want to add any sugar. Mezzrole is six tenths of a gram of sugar for the entire can, which is eight ounces, 16 calories.
So, to recap, each can of Mezzrole is eight fluid ounces, six tenths of a gram of sugar, ginger, lime and rice vinegar with THC infusion. And it’s not a seltzer!
Green: What was special to you about the Ti’ Punch?
Bobrow: My family had a yacht, and we would go places in the Caribbean. One of the places we would go in the Caribbean was Down Island and they would have drinks like the Ti’ Punch. I remember that it was emblazoned in my brain. It was a drink that got me drunk. It was what sailors did; they got drunk. And you would get drunk on drinks that go back to the days of the pirates, because they probably didn’t have ice on the sailing vessels. So, why should a couple million-dollar yacht make any difference? We had icemakers, but you drink the drink without ice. You drink it like it was drunk in the age of sailing.
I wanted to reinterpret the Ti’ Punch and bring credence and life to that drink by bringing it to life in the Mezzrole. But the Mezzrole has another story behind it entirely. That’s because Mezz Mezzrow, who was a jazz head during the jazz era, brought between two and 4,000 pounds of cannabis up from Mexico, and sold it in Detroit, Chicago and Harlem during the early days of jazz. He made quite a name for himself. At the time, cannabis was not illegal on a national level yet. If you were to ask for a joint or reefer, you might become detained by the police, especially if you were Black. Not only were the police at that time incredibly anti-jazz and anti-Black and anti-cannabis, but they were just anti people having fun! So there had to be code names and a well-rolled cannabis cigarette was known as a “Mezzrole” and that’s what I named the cocktail after.
I’m paying homage to Louis, and I’m friendly with Louis’ daughter, Sharon. She’s the daughter that no one ever knew about. It’s a very interesting story. We’re hopefully going to do something together. I find great inspiration in jazz, and we wanted to pay homage to the role of characters in jazz by creating a beverage that hopefully wouldn’t get us arrested.
Green: Can you walk me through your choice of strain for the beverage?
Bobrow: I work with a company named Vertosa. They are the magicians in the world of nanotechnology emulsions. They’re scientists like yourself, who are upper intellects who dream in color. And the colors that they’ve chosen are the colors of the plant. So, they’ve enlivened the plant chemically through their process. I’m not privy to that process, but I’ll tell you it works. Their emulsion is gorgeous stuff. I just chose the emulsion for my next two SKUs and it’s exactly what I was looking for. It’s slightly bitter, it has depth and character, and we haven’t even added the terpenes in yet. So, it’s well balanced, and it will work exceptionally well with the craft ingredients that I’m working with. I don’t use industrialized ingredients, these are all bartending ingredients, if you will. We do 5,000 can production runs with bartending ingredients. It’s incredible food science. I love it.
Green: What was behind your decision in adding the terpene flavors?
Bobrow: What makes that interesting is no one else is doing it. So, we’re the first again! Not only did I write the first book on cannabis, and cocktails, and tonics, and all that stuff, but I created the first beverage that actually smells like cannabis. So, when you’re drinking one of my beverages, and you drink down maybe a quarter inch, and you put your nose right over the top and smell it, it smells just like the plant along with that ginger and the lime and that tangy quality of the mirin. And it’s spicy. It has an herbaceous quality to it. It’s really uncanny.
Green: Were there any challenges in working with terpenes in a beverage?
Bobrow: Yes, there’s always challenges. First off, I’m here in New Jersey, and the company that I’m working with is in California, so they can’t send me anything. So, I work very closely with a food scientist named Chris Anderson who did my scalability, and he’s absolutely brilliant. His palate mimics my own. I don’t want a sweet beverage. I want a tangy beverage. I want something that has balanced quality and fun and it makes you want to dance. I’m not looking for something to put me to sleep. That’s not my goal in life. Life is very short, and you want to have a beverage that is talkative and doesn’t get you totally destroyed. There are beverages out on the market that have 500 milligrams of THC called syrups. They’re absolutely delicious, but they’re so destructive because they want you to put them in a sugary beverage and drink the whole thing down.
I’m not a kid anymore and I don’t drink like a kid. I drink with sophisticated flavors and make beverages that are memorable. People come to me – and have since the early part of 2009 – and they say things like, “That’s the best cocktail I’ve ever had in my life. How do you do that?” My aim in life is to ruin people for their bartender because I expose all the things that our bartenders are doing to rip them off.
I started as a bar back and I worked my way up. I went to this guy named Chris James, who was working at The Ryland Inn running their beverage program. I needed a job, and he hired me as this bar back for a year and they kicked my butt. After that I could write about this stuff with knowledge and not just with something I read in a book. There’s a lot to be said for education and going to bartending school. There’s also a lot to be said for cutting your own ice and squeezing your own juice and taking out the trash.
Green: What are some of the challenges you are facing at Klaus?
Bobrow: We’re hoping to do a Series A round of financing. I wonder who would be interested in lending to us or giving us money or investing in us. I always wonder why anyone would be interested in any of this! But I have a talent and a passion, and I know that it will take me to the next step in life. I’ve waited and been very patient. I have massive shoes to fill, and I’m so committed to being ambitious.
I was an executive assistant in a Trust Bank for 20 years. I put my life on hold for others because they wanted to make an example out of me. I never became the person that my parents wanted me to become. They wanted me to become a lawyer and I didn’t have the aptitude for that. I had the aptitude for being a creative soul and a creative mind. It just took me 20 years longer to be able to achieve that.
I consider myself the luckiest man in the world because I did work for the C-suite and for the top of the house and I sold wine to them when I worked on the nights and weekends in a wine store. My customers were the presidents and “kingmakers of the world.” Here in Northern New Jersey, if nothing else, it’s pretty affluent. So, I’ve long been accustomed to coming from that environment. I know what that environment means and the importance of that environment. I had to figure out how to make it myself because I was, in polite parley, “disowned.” So, I am self-made, and I have a great product that I’ve created out of nowhere. It’s hopefully going to allow me to figure out what the next step will be in my life. I want to make this a national name.
Green: What trends are you following in the cannabis beverage space?
Bobrow: I’ve had some good ones. I’ve had some okay ones. And I’ve had some that are just, I don’t know. I’m a cook. I’m a saucier. I love flavors. I’m trained in France. I cook. It’s a lifelong thing. I started as a dishwasher, and I worked my way up. I’ve traveled the world eating.
I’ll tell you, if you don’t know flavors, you can’t put anything together. And if you don’t know what goes into making a beverage that’s different than what anyone else is doing in the world, then you don’t deserve to be in this business because it’s highly competitive and people play for keeps. If I only get one chance to capture people’s imagination, it comes with this beverage right here [Warren holds up a can of Mezzrole].
Green: What’s next for Klaus?
Bobrow: I hope to be doing Klaus Nein. It’s a terpene forward, non-cannabis infused craft beverage. It doesn’t have any THC, so I can sell it everywhere. I caught the travel bug years ago, when I was traveling all over the world for the rum business. And I got it back again. I hate that the world became such a small place during COVID. Because it really is a big place. And it’s a place that I need to explore more of. Stay tuned!
Green: What are you most interested in learning about?
Bobrow: You know, it’s funny. I think everyone that I come across I can learn something from. My teachers at Emerson and later at MIT, where I spent a fitful year, taught me that I wasn’t the smartest person in the room, but I certainly was the most inquisitive. So, I want to be known as someone who has pretty good listening skills. I also have great skills in the way of trying to draw out answers from people. So, I have a lot to learn and I’m excited about the opportunity of learning. If I can share a little bit of my knowledge with other people within the industry and they respect me for what I’ve achieved, then I’ll be a much happier person. I’m already happy. I’m very lucky. I am the luckiest guy in the room.
Green: Thank you Warren. That concludes the interview!