Weed next to wine at the dinner table
Three-course meals start at $1,250
To your left, a fork and a wine glass. To your right, a pipe for your pot. The pipe, a lighter and an ashtray are yours to keep at the end of a meal catered by Cultivating Spirits, which pairs dishes with wines and — it promises — just the right kind of cannabis.
“We are adding a third layer on to your dinner experience,” said Philip Wolf, the 31-year-old who founded the Silverthorne, Colo., company in early 2014. Wolf has two full-time employees and received a verbal commitment for a $400,000 investment.
He’s one of the first accredited cannabis sommeliers in the United States, having completed two levels of schooling at the Trichome Institute in Denver. It’s one of a handful of such schools, greatly outnumbered by the many certification programs for wine sommeliers.
The legal-marijuana industry is in its infancy in the U.S., with recreational use permitted in Colorado, Alaska, Oregon and Washington D.C., and it’s on the ballot in eight states this year.
Trichome calls its program Interpening, which refers to “a method used to identify and understand cannabis variety, based on interpreting the plant’s terpenes and flower structure. Scientifically speaking, terpenes are evaporating molecular hydrocarbon chains that produce scent.”
Wolf will break down the strain of cannabis and give that over to the chef. “We don’t prepare the menu until two days before the event, to utilize the freshest ingredients,” Wolf said.
A typical menu features a rib-eye steak with chile relleno, a 2013 malbec, and Gorilla Glue. For dessert, there’s a white chocolate creme brûlée with a 2012 petite Syrah and Blue Dream. The protocol is puff, eat, drink, in that order, though it’s more a sensible suggestion than a rule, and it’s hard to imagine anyone getting upset at a breach, especially as the meal goes on.
Wolf doesn’t expect weed to replace wine at the dinner table.
“If anything, I think it’ll take something away from hard alcohol.” He said the slow, deliberate tasting experience of wine and marijuana makes for a better pair than food and cocktails.
Most restaurants charge handsomely for a dinner with wine pairings. Adding weed to the mix only increases the price. The minimum cost of a three-course pairing dinner catered by Wolf is $1,250, which provides enough of everything to entertain a group of 10. The company, which caters at least five events a month, served 56 people for dinner on the opening night of the X Games in January 2015.
Cultivating Spirits targets bachelor, bachelorette and birthday parties, and the wedding industry. In January, Wolf helped organize the Cannabis Wedding Expo, where his catering services were presented alongside smokable bouquets and venues that allow smoking. A full-service wedding package from Wolf ’s company approaches $10,000, with additional à la carte services such as managing what it calls the bud bar, and a pre-wedding cannabis tasting.
Many of Wolf’s clients are younger customers treating themselves for a special event, he said, or affluent women holding an alternative dinner party.
“What I’m trying to teach millennials is to slow down a little bit, to get in tune with themselves and what they’re putting in their bodies, to focus on different tastes and textures,” Wolf said.
But he said he doesn’t target that demographic exclusively.
“I feel like cannabis is something for all walks of life,” he said.
WE ARE ADDING A THIRD LAYER ON TO YOUR DINNER EXPERIENCE … I FEEL LIKE CANNABIS IS SOMETHING FOR ALL WALKS OF LIFE. — PHILIP WOLF