Why eat ice cream after weed if you can do both at the same time? The Hop Ice Cream Cafe in Ashville, North Carolina is debuting ice cream with just a hint of cannabis. On June 29th, the local chain will start serving up scoops of CBD ice cream, homemade with local hemp milk.
CBD Is Going Into Everything
People are adding CBD to almost anything these days. Cannabidiol, or CBD, is booming because it has a host of health benefits but won’t get you high. These range from reducing day-to-day stress and anxiety to treating seizures and conditions caused by inflammation. Experts have forecasted that the CBD market will grow 700 percent by 2020.
Owners of the Hop Ice Cream Cafe, Ashley and Greg Garrison, are longtime fans of the CBD. “I use the drops and now that we’ve been getting the flowers, I’ve been making my own hemp lattes too,” Ashley Garrison told Green Rush Daily.
CBD Ice Cream Is Coming To North Carolina
It didn’t take the Garrisons long before realizing that CBD would pair perfectly with ice cream. In Asheville, North Carolina, a noted creative community, CBD is already popular. Garrison explained, “We’re good friends with a local cheese shop owner who has been doing hemp milk CBD lattes that are just flying out the door.”
The Hop Ice Cream Cafe has teamed up with a local hemp company called Blue Ridge Hemp. “They’re doing a cherry wine strain and it’s like a sweet … it’s a really delicious smelling hemp flower,” she described.
Since the Hop Ice Cream Cafe is already making hemp milk vegan ice cream, they decided to add CBD to the process. “We steep the flowers in the ice cream before you churn it, so it extracts the CBD oil. Then we add just a little bit of vanilla.”
Healthy-ish Ice Cream
“Healthy and ice cream don’t necessarily go in the same sentence,” Ashley told us, “but we’re trying to incorporate healthier items into our ice cream.” This means adding nutritious flavors like vegetable, turmeric, sea salt and hemp CBD-infused to their menu.
Every Friday, the Hop Ice Cream Cafe hosts a themed tasting party. They’ll be debuting their CBD-infused ice cream at Wellness Night, which will be held on at June 29th. After that, you’ll be able to find CBD ice cream at the Hop Ice Cream Cafe’s three locations.
