Category Archives: Product Review

Periodic Edibles Strain-Specific Artisan Cannabis Caramels Review

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Periodic Edibles makes four cannabis-infused caramels, an Indica, a Sativa, a Hybrid and a CBD formulation. Not only are they type-specific (Indica/Sativa/Hybrid/CBD), which I love, they are also strain specific which I love even more!

Each piece is labeled with exactly what strain of marijuana was used to make the caramel. The strain is indicated on the jars and packaging. Sometimes the farm is indicated as well. I tested a Sativa batch made with Cindy 99 (aka Cinderella 99) and an Indica batch made with Obama Kush. The CBD formula has 35mg of CBD and 20mg of THC. The Indica and Sativa caramels both have 50mg of THC.

They also make a “low dose” 10mg individual package as well as 50 mg vegan multi-packs. While the THC caramels are only available in Oregon, they ship their Hemp Caramels to 42 states. They label them as Balanced (Hybrid), Active (Sativa), Recover (CBD) and Relax (Indica). They also make a medical strength of 100mg for medical patients.

Periodic Caramel Pieces

Periodic Sea Salt Caramels are made with quality ingredients and they taste great. There is a medicinal taste to this cannabis edible, but it’s not off putting.The flavor reminds me of other cannabis caramels that have a pronounced THC oil taste. The taste is not medicinal or alcohol-like but you can taste the cannabutter in a pronounced way. The regular caramel is well made with a good cream and salt taste. This is made with butter and milk, so it is not suitable for vegans. They do make a vegan version, using canna-coconut oil.

The flavor was fine but I’m not a big fan of the taste overall. I did see on the website they have made a caramel apple flavor and an Indica lavender caramel, both of which sound great.

Two containers of Periodic Sea Salt Caramels in Indica and Sativa. Packaging showing total of 50mg THC per package.
Indica and Sativa strains of Periodic Sea Salt Caramels
THC and nutritional information in the back of Periodic Sea Salt Caramels
Dosing and nutritional information on the back of Periodic Sea Salt Caramels containers

The product comes as one large caramel. The package does come with an indicator on the wrapping to help you divide the caramel into 5mg serving sizes. Since the product is small (2 inches) I found it a little difficult to match the wrapper indicator with the knife, so I ended up with 8 pieces instead of 10, making for a dose size of 6.25mg for each piece. I wish there was some way for the manufacturer to score the caramels to make them easier to split into doses. Dosing is eyeballing a cutting pattern on the wrapper. It’s not ideal.

Once I had cut mine up and put them in the fridge for a 30 minutes, they split nicely into individual pieces. While they do hold their shape without refrigeration, I would plan to keep these in the refrigerator both to keep them fresh and to make them easier to handle as they can get sticky and gooey when it is warm.

Periodic Caramels Whole

As I always advise folks, I started with a small dose, taking one of the 6.25mg pieces. My usual dose is 10mg of THC so I expected to feel about 3/4 of the usual effects. I was surprised that after an hour I did not feel much. As I approached two hours without much effect, I took another piece, taking the dose up to 12.5mg. After 45 minutes I began to feel the effects. I took them as usual with coffee and a regular sized breakfast that included some fat to help the THC metabolize. What effects we experience from edibles can vary with what we have eaten, other chemicals in our systems, etc.

For some reason I did not feel a strong energetic effect from this Sativa edible. Likely this is due to it being made with a Sativa hybrid. Leafly describes Cinderella 99 as being known “for a potent cerebral high…dreamy, euphoric, and uplifting”. I did find it dreamy, with a more spacey head than other sativa edibles. I did find it uplifting but not energetic, so for me this is something I would rather use in the afternoon or evening than in the morning. I did not get the effects I was expecting for a Sativa, but now I know the effects of this strain and I can use it at a more appropriate time. I am happy to exchange my expectations for the ability to find exactly the effects I desire from particular strains.

Periodic Caramels Strain

The Obama Kush used in the Indica caramel is a strain with effects that are unusual for an Indica. Leafly describes it like this: “Obama Kush sets itself apart from other Indicas through its cerebral stimulation and euphoric rush. This strain is recommended for all levels of patients looking for a balanced experience, as it offers powerful physical effects as well as an intense cerebral uplift that does not stimulate appetite or put you to sleep.” So if you were hoping this Indica edible would put you to sleep, you would likely be disappointed.

This is a good reminder of the benefits of strain-specific edibles, as you can find strains that have combinations of effects that are more customized to a person’s needs. Rather than an Indica that helps you relax but puts you to sleep, you can find an Indica that helps you relax but you remain alert. Or instead of a focused, energetic high from a Sativa, you might prefer a dreamy, uplifting Sativa effect.

Made in Oregon and only available in that state as of 2021.

Flavor: 6

Potency: 5

Website: http://www.periodicedibles.com

Atlas Lemongrass Ginger CBD THC Cannabis Beverage Mix Review

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Lemongrass Ginger cannabis-infused beverage mix from Atlas lets you make your own beverage and moderate your dose once you mix it up. Each package comes with 10mg of CBD and 5mg of THC and they do sell four-packs together. The package is a single serving that you mix with 12 oz. of liquid and they recommend you do not separate the powder into portions before you mix it up.

Atlas Lemongrass and Ginger Cannabis Infused beverage mix 10mg CBD 5mg THC

As with all edibles and drinkables, it’s important to try new products at half of your usual dose the first time, until you know how strong the effects are for you. Since my usual dose of THC is 10mg and up to 15mg for CBD, I was willing to try this package since, in my experience, CBD reduces the impact of THC.

If you are sensitive to THC or CBD, or you don’t know what your tolerance is, only drink half of the mix you make and wait two hours to make sure you don’t take more than is enjoyable for you. That will give you 5mg of CBD and 2.5 mg of THC, which for some folks is plenty.

The package needs to be cut open to pour out the powder. There was a strong lemongrass smell from the powder. They recommend that you add the powder to twelve ounces of liquid – I used water. You might want to use a container with a lid you can close, so you can really shake it up to mix it. It also worked fine just to stir it vigorously in a glass, though it did take some time to dissolve.

The ingredients include a few forms of sweetener including cannabis-infused cane sugar. It also contains stevia, which I find gives a dry aftertaste.

Taste

I use stevia for coffee and tea, but I find the aftertaste too pronounced and unpleasant to be enjoyable for most cold drinks. It is almost too much for me in this product, but the lemongrass and ginger flavors are strong so they mostly mask it. It still does have a slight stevia aftertaste taste and I found that a little unpleasant.

I love ginger and this has a very strong ginger taste mixed with the lemongrass. If you’ve ever had fresh ginger juice, squeezed from grated ginger, you know how strong it can be. This wasn’t quite that overpowering, but if you love serious ginger flavor, this is the flavor for you. It reminds me of ginger lemonade made with a generous amount of ginger juice. The ingredients list natural flavors but doesn’t say what those flavors are. Ginger and green tea extract are listed as the only other flavorings besides the various sweeteners. There are no artificial colors used.

Effects

I did begin to feel the effects within a half hour, with the reduction of any pain from inflammation I might be experiencing lessened, which I usually find with CBD. Being a liquid, there is less a bit less digesting to be done, so I usually find that cannabis infused beverages have a slightly faster onset for me than most edibles.

There is no indication of what strain(s) are used when extracting the THC, so it can be hard to judge what impact to expect. I found the effects slightly relaxing and it gave me a slightly stoned feeling mentally. I always prefer to know what strain was used or if it is a sativa, indica or hybrid, as that can tell me what impact I can expect.

I find CBD is much more effective on pain and discomfort when paired with THC, so I appreciate the 2-1 ration of Atlas’s beverage mix. I don’t expect a CBD-focused product to give me the elevated experience of a product that is purely or primarily THC. Expect the pain relief, relaxation and anti-inflammatory impacts that are typical for CBD.

I need more CBD than 10mg usually to make an impact on sore, tired muscles and I can usually have 10mg of THC with no problem. Now that I have tried this product several times, I could see making up two batches, so I could see what the impacts are of one dose plus one quarter dose, or one dose plus a half dose, to find the right impact for me. As always, and as mentioned above, try a new edible or drinkable several times at lower than your normal dose, then at your usual dose, before even thinking of taking more than a standard dose. Start low and go slow.

Wrap Up

The effects are what I would expect from a 2-1 CBD + THC edible or drinkable. I much prefer this flavor to the Pomegranate Green Tea flavor of this beverage mix. I like a strong ginger taste and the calming effect ginger has on digestion. I also like lemongrass and lemonade, so this flavor combination is a winner for me.

At my dispensary, a single serving size is priced at $7.50 plus tax. They do sell a four-pack, priced at $22 plus tax, bringing the price down to $5.50 per dose before tax. If you look at our Cost Per 10mg Dose comparison, this is on the more expensive end of options.

I could see this as part of my regular set of options when I want the effects of CBD. For those who like the flavor and who like the effects provided, this is a fine addition to a CBD edibles & drinkables collection.

Taste: 5

Strength: 6

Website: http://atlasedibles.com/lemongrass-ginger

Kush Nuts Cannabis Coated Nuts Review

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Kush Nuts are cannabis-coated almonds and cashews. They offer one of the few sugar-free edible choices available. There are both Sativa and Indica formulas.

We always love it when edibles indicate Sativa or Indica, even more so when they are strain specific and even better when they indicate the source so you know exactly what you are getting and from where. In this case Kush Nuts gives all of that information. In the batch we tested, the Sativa strain was Dragonfish Farm’s Red Congelese.

The rosemary and garlic flavor is very good, making these a little bit dangerous, as it would be easy to pop a handful in your mouth. Be aware that one nut is about equal to 5mg THC, so if your usual dosing is 10mg, just two nuts will provide that dose.

While these snacks are sugar free, gluten free and paleo friendly, they do use butter so they are not vegan.

Having tried these both alone and with other edibles, I find that I use them to help augment other edibles whose effects are wearing off or ones that are not as strong as I wanted. I can eat just one nut and bump my dose up by 5mg, which is perfect for increasing dosing without taking in too much at once. Just by themselves, taking my usual 10mg dose just doesn’t give me the same strong effects as other edibles. I am glad they are more mild, as they make an excellent addition to other edibles if I am not getting the strength of effect I want.

Since edibles are aided in digestion by a little bit of fat, the butter and oil as well as the fats in the nuts take care of that, so you don’t have to eat some avocado or mac and cheese to help these edibles along.

Kush Nuts are made by Wish, a California based not-for-profit collective and they are currently available only at dispensaries in the San Francisco Bay Area in California.

Wonderfully tasty, these are a great alternative to edibles with sugar and they provide a way to easily take 5mg doses.

Flavor: 8

Strength: 8

Website: http://www.kushnuts.com/

Dixie Cannabis Birthday Cake Bar Review

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If you love the taste of white chocolate and frosting straight from the can, you will love the taste of this Birthday Cake bar. While there is a bit of vanilla cake flavor, the frosting and white chocolate flavor dominate. The flavors are so strong it makes the THC flavor hardly noticeable. While the sprinkles don’t add any flavor, they add a nice crunch along with the pretty rainbow colors.

Dixie Birthday Cake White Chocolate Cannabis Infused bar
Dixie Birthday Cake White Chocolate Cannabis Infused bar

This edible is delicious, loaded with sugar and dairy products. The perfect treat when you want to indulge your sweet tooth and enjoy the effects of the THC. The sprinkles do come with FD&C artificial colors, which some folks need to avoid, so be aware of that if you have a sensitivity to those ingredients.

This edible comes in an unusual amount for dosing. Most edibles come with 10mg of THC per serving or a way to easily divide it up into 10mg pieces. The standard Birthday Cake bar contains 100mg of THC but comes in portions of 8mg. So if 10 mg is your preferred dose, you may need to cut one piece into four sections of 2mg each so that you can add that to their serving size to get your desired dose. Even the Dixie Brand gummies come in 10mg servings, so we are not sure why the chocolate bars have an odd dose size.

In certain states Dixie also sells chocolate bars that contain 500mg of THC or 42mg per serving, which is a high dose for most casual users but necessary for folks who have a high tolerance due to body chemistry, other medications they take or having developed a tolerance.

Dixie explains on their website that “When you consume a Dixie edible, the THC is processed in your liver—transforming from a Δ-9 is to a more potent 11-hydroxy”. To be clear, this occurs when you consume any edible, not just a Dixie edible.

Dixie Birthday Cake bar with THC, white chocolate and rainbow sprinkles
Dixie Birthday Cake bar – old design

Effects

As regular readers know, we prefer edibles that clearly indicate if they are made with cannabis that is Sativa, Indica or a hybrid of the two. Unfortunately none of the Dixie chocolates indicate this, which makes it harder to know what the effects will be.

Even at the lower 8mg dose, we noticed the effects beginning within half an hour when eaten on an empty stomach. Initial effects included a slight heady buzz and a feeling of being relaxed. We do not notice much of the focus, energy or creativity we would expect from a Sativa or Sativa-dominant hybrid strain, so we can only guess that this is made with a mixture of hybrid strains, perhaps dominated by Indica.

After the first two hours we were only having relaxed effects not energy or focus. This could be due to a serving only having 8mg. we then took another half a serving, which brought us up to 12mg. Initially it seemed fine but after a while it was on the verge of being too strong. It is nice that these are strong, but when you are thrown off by nonstandard dosing you can make an error and add too much. This was a focused high but not very energetic. Spacey and dreamy at times, generally functional and not a generator of strong munchies.

We found these to be quite strong, so be cautious with dosing as even a little too much can create too strong of an effect. Wait the full 2 hours after ingesting any more to gauge the full effects.

Dixie Brand chocolates are available in Colorado and Nevada, with some products also now available in California.

Flavor: 7

Strength: 9

Website: Dixie Brand Chocolates

Kushy Punch Sativa & Indica Cannabis Gummies Review

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Kushy Punch Cannabis Infused Gummies come in Sativa and Indica formulas. I greatly prefer THC edibles that indicate if they are Sativa or Indica, as I never know what effect I can expect with many generic “hybrid” edibles. These gummies provide specific effect with specific formulations, which helps you know what to expect. Kushy Punch also does make a Hybrid formula, a Recover formula (THC +CBD), a CBD formula and a Private Reserve hybrid gummy.

I love that the Kushy Punch website indicates the type of genetics for each of their formulas:

According to a recent Los Angeles Times article, Kushy Punch are one of the most popular edibles brands in the L.A. area and I was glad to find them in Northern California as well. Fortunately they are widely available in California

Ingredients and Packaging

These gummies are gluten free, dairy free, fat free, peanut free and kosher. They are not vegan or really vegetarian either, as the gelatin they contain is made from animal products. They are a tiny 3.3 calories per piece. As with many California edibles, they come in a package of ten doses totaling 100 mg of THC per package. The Sativa and Indica formulas have 0.1mg of CBD per 10mg of THC in each dose. At 3.3 calories per serving, they are a low calorie edible.

Kushy Punch cannabis infused gummies GIF

You have to push in the flaps at the sides of the box to open the inner container, then peel back a foil cover to reveal the 10 gummies. The gummies are in one large piece with sections you have to pull apart. Be careful separating them, as it’s easy to mistakenly rip off more than a single serving size piece.

I found it difficult to figure out what the flavor was. I had to check the box to see that the Sativa is a Strawberry flavor and Indica is Plum flavor. The ingredients are tapioca syrup, cane sugar, water, gelatin, citric acid, natural flavor extract, cannabis oil and coloring. A typical, if not mouth-watering ingredient list common to many gummies. The flavor was pretty generic and I could taste the cannabis oil, though mildly. They tasted fine, if really unremarkable. I did have a cannabis oil aftertaste with the Indica formula.

Effects

The front of the box has a graphic that says there is 60 minute activation. With individual metabolisms varying so greatly, I’m not sure how they can back up this claim as being scientifically proven. Even as an individual I have had the same edible hit me significantly sooner or later than usual depending on what else is my system.

The effects are primarily as you would expect, with the Indica formula to be a more body-focused effect with relaxation, anti-anxiety, heightened senses and a light, calm type of euphoria. Sativa is more focused on the head, with creativity, energy and a similar effect of heightened senses.

These THC gummies produce the effects you would expect from Indica or Sativa strains of cannabis. The strength is good, producing a noticeable effect similar to other type-specific edibles. The effects last the usual 4-5 hours for me.

Not the best tasting gummies I’ve had, but they have no offensive taste either. For a low calorie, reliable edible with effects on point to what you would expect, Kushy Punch gummies are a good bet for elevating.

Taste: 3

Strength: 8

Website: Passion Care LLC – https://kushypunch.com/

Valhalla Cannabis Sativa Gummies Review

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My go-to edible for daytime use is the Valhalla Sour Watermelon Sativa gummies. They hit all of the important points for me – flexible potency, great taste and consistent effects.

Tasty, Portable, Economical and Effective

One of the first and most important elements of any edible is taste. While you may be willing to deal with a not-great taste for specific effects, it is always great when the edible is delicious. Being a big fan of Jolly Roger-type flavors, I love the Sour Watermelon flavor that Valhalla uses. I can still taste the cannabis a little bit and the flavoring works in harmony with that taste, not trying to cover it up or clashing with it, as some edibles can.

Since they come in Indica and Sativa and CBD specific types, the Valhalla gummies let you find the right ratio of each through experimentation.You might want half a Sativa and half a CBD for daytime pain relief and uplift. Or half an Indica and a whole CBD for evening use or sleep support.

I have found that if I take them on a relatively empty stomach and take it with some food with fat in it as well as having caffeine, I get a perfectly strong effect that lasts at least 4-5 hours. When I feel the effects fading I can boost it with another half of a gummy, as they are easy to cut or bite through.

This is my standard edible for days when I want an energetic effect to help me get things done around the house, spark creativity or help focus on a task. Valhalla gummies deliver that consistently and with great taste!

Read our review of the Valhalla Indica Gummies here.

Strength: 8

Flavor: 9

Website: http://www.valhallaconfections.com