Best Edibles in Colorado
Saturday, February 1st, 2020
Best Edibles in Colorado
I’ll admit it: I’m an edible lush. I can’t remember the last night I drifted off to sleep without a belly full of THC, nor can I remember a Saturday in recent history wherein I didn’t spend the morning in a haze thanks to an edible or two. That, taken in concert with the fact that I work in a dispensary, and the fact that I write about marijuana for this blog and two other local publications, means that I’m well qualified to list “the best edibles in Colorado.” But before we get into all that, I wanted to talk about my methodology for creating this list, because most edible “best of” lists focus too strongly on the food itself. For instance, “taste” is usually the first criteria looked at, but that’s ridiculous. If I want good-tasting candy, I go buy good-tasting candy. But when it comes to an edible, it’s the high that matters, not the food that contains the cannabinoids, so taste will be the last thing I consider in my rankings. Make sense?
Secondly, there’s a caveat we need to get out of the way. I’d imagine that a few of you who found this blog via a Google search have never tried a Colorado recreational edible, so I wanted to leaven this list with a little advice: start small and start slow. Here in Colorado, the regulations make it so a recreational edible cannot have more than 10mg THC per serving (and there cannot be more than 100mg THC in the package), but 10mg THC is way too much for some first-time edible consumers. Most edible producers jumped straight to the maximum 10mg per serving so their product could compete, but when most first-time consumers take “one serving,” it floors them, and they have a terrible first experience. Also, since the THC in an edible takes time to get into your system (it can take up to two hours to feel the full intensity), a lot of first-time consumers end up eating way too much because they don’t feel the high quickly, which they try to fix by eating more. So, if you don’t know how much of a serving suits you, try taking half the gummy (or a quarter if you’re the cautious type), and then wait an entire hour and a half before even considering the other half. And then once you figure out how much THC makes a perfect serving size for you personally, come back to this list and choose accordingly.
Alright… without further ado, here’s my take on The Best Cannabis Infused Edibles in Colorado:
The Best Edible for Nighttime:
3.) Ripple Green Tea Mango Gummies
2.) Dixie Tropic Twist Gummies
1.) 1906 Midnight Dark Chocolate Gems
Starting with number three, all Ripple products are water-soluble, so these gummies take effect very quickly, which is perfect if you’re in a hurry to get to bed. And they have a perfect 1:1 ratio of THC:CBD (each gummy delivers 2.5mg THC/CBD), so the high is mellow and perfect for calming thoughts. The Tropic Twist Gummies from Dixie are infused with an Indica CO2 oil, and each one delivers 10mg THC, which makes them four times as potent as number three, which is perfect for those of us with a high tolerance. And lastly, the 1906 Midnight is as good as an edible gets for the nighttime. Yes, they’re water soluble and they deliver 5mg THC/CBD per serving, but they’re also made with corydalis rhizome extract, so these things will glue you to your sheets like no other edible.
The Best Morning/Daytime Edible:
3.) Sweet Pieces
1.) 1906 Go Beans
The Sweet Pieces made it to number three because hard candy makes a perfect backpacking companion, and because each serving delivers 5mg THC and 1.5mg CBD, which is nice. The Mango Gummies from Binske are vegan, believe it or not, and they’re no stranger to “best of” lists because they won Leafly’s edible brand of the year for 2018. The Go Beans, however, are on an entirely different level with it comes to edibles. They’re chocolate-covered coffee beans, and the caffeine pairs perfectly with the extra theobromine and the 5mg of water-soluble THC/CBD in each serving. For real, if not for the caffeine that makes the Go Beans unsuitable for the evening, this product would be my pick for overall best edible, because they’re so, so awesome.
The Best CBD Edible:
3.) Ripple Relief
1.) Lucky Turtle No Bad Days Tincture
Since Ripple Relief is a water-soluble, tasteless, odorless, instantly-dissolvable powder that you can mix with any food or drink, it deserves its place on the list. The 50:1 gummies from TasteBudz, however, are such a good deal that they landed in second. These gummies are $42 after tax, and each one provides 50mg CBD and 1mg THC (for a CBD package total of 500mg), and that’s insanely affordable. But the No Bad Days tincture contains a whopping 1500mg CBD, making it a 100-day supply, so it definitely wins.
The Best Solventless Edible:
1.) Love’s Oven Turtle Brownies
Yes, there are only two winners in this category. It’s because we sell only two solventless edibles given that we haven’t found another option out there that’s good enough for our shelves. And really, that’s a weird thing when you think about it, because since solventless edibles are made without any chemicals whatsoever, you’d think there’d be more demand for them. Oh well. Anyway, “pastille” is just a fancy word for “dissolvable candy,” and these from 1906 are made with decarboxylated bubble hash. That means the only things used to take the THC out of the plant were water and ice, which is pretty cool. The Turtle Brownies that came in first place are made with canna-butter, which is the original way of making edibles. It’s nice to see modern companies stick to traditions, so Love’s Oven is the winner.
The Best Discrete Edible:
3.) Ripple Pure 10
2.) Dixie Mints
1.) Altus Tablets
A lot of our customers are tourists who come from a place where cannabis is still illegal, so many of them turn to discrete edibles out of habit while they’re in Durango. I get it. The Ripple Pure 10 is more of that powder (and there’s nothing more discrete than an infused water bottle), the mints from Dixie are super small mints (the entire package fits in even the smallest pockets), but Altus is the winner. These tablets look much like Advil pills, you get 20 in a container (each of which delivers 5mg THC), and they deliver a spectacular Indica or Sativa high.
The Best Single-Serving Edible:
3.) Caramel Apple Mountain High Sucker
2.) Espresso Chocolate on a Spoon from Coda
I loved those green apple suckers covered with caramel when I was a kid, and now that they make them with marijuana, I love them as an adult, too. Each one delivers 10mg THC and 3mg CBD. When it comes to the espresso chocolate on a spoon, you’re supposed to stir it into hot water to make an infused mocha at home, but these things taste so good that I always skip the water part and eat the chocolate right off the spoon. Each one delivers 10mg THC, and that good taste has nothing to do with this product’s second-place finish: the CO2 oil high is wonderful. However, the 10mg THC/CBD (1:1) honey packet from Lucky Turtle wins. The honey is locally sourced and the high from this single-serving edible is suited for anytime, anywhere.
The Best All-around Edible:
3.) Strawberry Stroopwafel
2.) Taste Buds Kiwi Strawberry Gummies
I know I said that taste is the last thing I look at when ranking edibles, but all three of these winners taste so, so good. For instance, a “Stroopwafel” is two small waffles sandwiched together with sugary strawberry syrup in the middle. As to the Kiwi Strawberry gummies, they’re made with strain-specific oil (meaning only one strain of flower was used), and the quality is as good as a gummy gets. The Cream and Crumble bar, however, is next level. I’ve written about Coda before because this company was founded by Lauren Gockley, one of the best chocolatiers in the world, and their extraction techs have CO2 oil down to an art. The Cream and Crumble bar is made from white chocolate infused with lemon zest and spiced crumble: it tastes a lot like a key lime bar, and it delivers 20, 5mg THC servings, which is rare for a bar.
Boom! List complete. And for the record, no, I didn’t choose these edibles simply because we sell them. It’s no coincidence that we happen to sell all the “best edibles in Colorado,” because we’ve spent years scouring the market for the best of everything. And frankly, that means you get a double whammy when you come here: you can buy the best edibles in Colorado from the best dispensary in Durango. It’s a win/win, which is something we’ve always tried to provide, because We’re Your Best Buds!