What is a green dragon tincture?
Green dragon tincture, or golden dragon tincture, is a term referring to cannabis tinctures in general. Cannabis tinctures are liquid cannabis products made with high-proof alcohol. Tinctures are made by soaking plant materials in alcohol to dissolve the cannabinoids and terpenes and infuse them in the liquid.
Typically, cannabis tinctures are made with alcohol between 150 to 190 proof. The higher the proof, the better, it more effectively dissolves the cannabinoids and terpenes from the plant material. Your best bet is grain alcohol, like Everclear. If you can't get your hands on Everclear, Bacardi 151 is a decent second option.
While green dragon can refer generally to any type of cannabis tincture, many online sources point to Master Wu's Green Dragon recipe — a specific tincture-making process that creates a final product in way less time than the traditional long soak method that requires weeks for the alcohol to extract cannabinoids from plant matter — Master Wu's Green Dragon takes 20 minutes total, and it's super EASY!
What you need
Gather together this list of stuff and let's get cookin'!
1/4 ounce of cannabis flower
4 ounces of high-proof alcohol, 190 proof preferred
A baking pan or Mason Jar
A saucepan
Aluminum foil
A Mason jar
How To Make It
Preheat oven
Preheat your oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit.
Chop your flower
To begin, chop your cannabis flower into very fine pieces - the smaller the better, as it makes for faster extraction. A coffee or spice grinder works well to grind up your cannabis thouroughly and quickly.
Place cannabis in the pan or Mason jar and cover
Place the cannabis on a shallow baking pan covered with a sheet of aluminum foil or place cannabis in a Mason jar and cover with the lid.
Bake
Place the baking pan or Mason jar in the oven and bake for 40 minutes, shaking it around at the 20 minute mark just to make sure all of the cannabis gets heated thouroughly. This decarboxylates the cannabis and turns the THCA into the active THC.
Prepare the mason jar
Remove the cannabis from the oven and place both cannabis and alcohol inside the Mason jar.
Master Wu's method
Pour the alcohol into the jar. Do not cover the jar. Your goal here is to evaporate alcohol off of the mixture. Lower the jar into a pot of shallow hot water. The water should just come part way up the side of the jar. Allow the water to simmer for 20 minutes. Use a thermometer to make sure the heat level stays at or around 170 degrees Fahrenheit. After 20 minutes, remove the jar from the water bath and allow it to cool. Strain the cannabis mixture to remove the excess plant material and pour the tincture into a storage container. You now should have approximately two ounces of dark, brownish-green tincture that's ready to use. Tinctures can be taken sublingually, orally, or dropped into edibles of all types.