Canna Sugar: How to Make Cannabis Sugar for Drinks and Baking

Butter and oil get most of the attention in cannabis cooking, but both bring fat into everything they touch. Canna sugar skips the fat. It is ordinary granulated sugar coated with a cannabis extract, so it stirs into coffee, rims a glass of lemonade and swaps into a cookie recipe one spoonful at a time.

Making it takes a bottle of high-proof alcohol, an oven for the flower and a few days of patience while the flower soaks and the alcohol dries off. The tricky part is the dose, since cannabis sugar looks exactly like the sugar in the pantry.

Key takeaways

• Plain sugar soaks up a cannabis tincture, and once the alcohol evaporates, the THC stays on the crystals.
• Raw flower holds mostly THCA, so it needs 30 to 40 minutes in a 250°F (121°C) oven first.
• With 3.5 grams of 20% flower, a cup of sugar holds at most about 614 mg of THC.
• That works out to roughly 10 mg per teaspoon, so a first serving is a quarter to half a teaspoon.
• Edible effects start 30 to 90 minutes after eating, so wait before taking a second spoonful.
• Cases of young children eating cannabis edibles rose 1,375% from 2017 to 2021, so label the sugar and lock it away.

Canna sugar, explained

Canna sugar is white sugar that has soaked up a cannabis extract and dried again. The extract is a cannabis tincture, flower steeped in high-proof alcohol, which pulls THC and other cannabinoids out of the plant. Pour that tincture over sugar, let the alcohol evaporate, and the cannabinoids stay behind as a thin film on every crystal.

THC dissolves in fat and alcohol but hardly at all in water, which is why most edibles start with butter or oil. Compared with cannabutter, THC sugar has no butter flavor, needs no fridge and measures neatly by the spoon.

Decarb the flower first

Raw cannabis carries most of its THC as THCA, an acid that does not produce a high. Heat breaks off part of the molecule as carbon dioxide and leaves THC behind. A 2024 paper in the Journal of Cannabis Research notes that decarboxylation is done by applying heat, the same reaction that happens in a joint, a vape or a pan of brownies. Alcohol cannot do that job, so flower that goes into the tincture raw gives a sugar made mostly of THCA.

At home, the oven handles it. Spread the ground flower on a parchment-lined tray and bake it at about 250°F (121°C) for 30 to 40 minutes, until it turns light golden brown and smells toasty. The flower loses a little weight on the tray as moisture and carbon dioxide leave, so weigh it before baking and work from that number.

Gear for one batch

Everything fits on one counter, and none of it is specialized:

• 3.5 grams of cannabis flower, ground coarse
• 1 cup (200 grams) of white granulated sugar
• About half a cup of food-grade 190-proof grain alcohol
• Lidded glass jar and a fine strainer or cheesecloth
• Glass baking dish or rimmed tray lined with parchment paper
• Kitchen scale, measuring spoons and a fork

Rubbing alcohol is poisonous to drink and never belongs in this recipe. Lower-proof spirits carry more water, which melts the sugar into syrup, so stay as close to 190 proof as your state sells.

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The canna sugar recipe, step by step

The steps below show how to make canna sugar from an eighth (3.5 grams) of flower, and this canna sugar recipe yields about one cup:

1. Decarb the ground flower as described above, let it cool and tip it into the jar.
2. Pour in enough alcohol to cover the flower by about half an inch, seal the jar and shake it for two minutes.
3. Leave the jar in a cool, dark cupboard for one to three days, shaking it once a day.
4. Strain the liquid through the cheesecloth into a bowl, squeezing the flower to get the last of it out.
5. Spread the sugar in the baking dish, pour the tincture over it and stir until every crystal is wet.
6. Let the alcohol evaporate in a well-ventilated room for 12 to 24 hours, stirring every hour or two so the sugar dries in loose grains.
7. Break up any clumps with the fork, then store the dry sugar in an airtight, labeled container.

High-proof alcohol catches fire easily, and its vapor is heavier than air, so it can drift along a counter toward a burner. Keep the drying dish away from gas stoves, candles and lighters, and run a fan or open a window while it dries. A longer soak pulls out more cannabinoids along with more chlorophyll, so a three-day jar gives a greener, grassier sugar than a one-day jar.

Dosing your THC sugar

The math starts with the flower. Multiply its weight by its THCA percentage, then by 0.877, because THCA loses a little weight when it turns into THC. If the label already lists total THC, skip that step. An eighth of flower with 20% THCA holds 700 mg of THCA, or about 614 mg of THC at most. Spread across a cup of sugar, which holds 48 teaspoons, that comes to about 13 mg per teaspoon. Home extraction never captures all of it, so if about three-quarters reaches the sugar, each teaspoon carries the amounts below:

For scale, two researchers writing in the journal Addiction proposed that a "Standard THC Unit" be fixed at 5 milligrams of THC for every cannabis product and method of use. With the 20% batch, half a teaspoon lands near that unit, and a quarter teaspoon makes a gentler first try. Stir the container before every measure, since the THC rarely spreads perfectly evenly, and level the spoon with a knife.

Coffee, lemonade and baking

Anything eaten works slowly. A 2003 review of cannabinoid research found that after eating, psychotropic effects set in with a delay of 30 to 90 minutes, peak after 2 to 3 hours and last 4 to 12 hours, depending on the dose. Plan a first sweetened coffee for a free afternoon with nowhere to drive.

Drinks need a little care. Because THC avoids water, part of it can cling to the cup or float on top of black coffee or lemonade, so stir well and finish the whole drink. A splash of milk, cream or coconut milk gives the THC some fat to hold on to. Canna sugar also rims a glass of lemonade or a mocktail neatly, but each rim counts as a serving, so measure what goes on it.

Baking is simpler. Swap part of a recipe's sugar for cannabis sugar, mix the dough thoroughly and divide the total THC by the number of cookies or slices. Regular oven baking is fine, though candy that cooks above 300°F (149°C) is a poor fit, since long, high heat breaks THC down.

Two strains for the sugar bowl

A little of a strain's flavor survives the soak, more of it from a one-day jar than from a three-day one, so the flower can match the job. Two of ours suit the two main uses:

• Strawberry Lemonade, a Strawberry and Lemon OG cross at 26% THC, tastes of sweet lemon and strawberry, an easy match for a sugared glass of lemonade.
• Frozen Bananas F1, our new Cookies & Cream and Banana Punch hybrid at 25% THC, carries banana, vanilla and cream notes that suit banana bread and sugar cookies.

Label it and lock it away

A spoonful of cannabis sugar looks exactly like a spoonful of the regular kind, and that is the real danger. A study in the journal Pediatrics counted just over 200 cases of children under six eating cannabis edibles in 2017, and by 2021 the number shot up to 3,054, an increase of 1,375%, NPR reported.

We keep ours in a container that looks nothing like the sugar bowl, marked with the word cannabis, the THC per teaspoon and the date it was made, on a high shelf or in a locked box. Keep it airtight, cool and dark, since light and heat slowly break THC down, and use it within a few months for the most predictable dose. Pets need the same caution, because dogs happily eat anything sweet.

Sweet, slow and measured

Canna sugar is plain sugar carrying THC from a decarbed alcohol tincture, which makes it the fat-free way to dose coffee, lemonade and baked goods. The flower goes in the oven first, the alcohol dries off completely, and the dose comes from simple math, about 10 mg per teaspoon for an eighth of 20% flower in a cup of sugar. Start with a quarter to half a teaspoon, give it at least 90 minutes before taking more, and keep the container labeled and out of reach.

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