In-house production lets Snapdragon Hemp create quality products
By now you’ve heard many aficionados proclaim the benefits of the hemp plant. And with so many hemp organizations moving into the Chattanooga area, it seems like we suddenly have a surplus of options for people who want to experiment with cannabidiol, better known as CBD.
With Snapdragon Hemp, the Chattanooga CBD community may have met its perfect match: hemp that’s manufactured locally into quality tinctures, edibles, and smokes, meaning the owner and chemist verify the composition and quality of the product, every batch.
Local and vegan, with a DIY vibe, Snapdragon Hemp offers what owners describe as natural, powerful hemp products at a fraction of the cost of those manufactured out of town.
“Our standard, full-spectrum oil is super-potent and very affordable,” says chemist Colt Crisp. “You don’t have to take a ton of it for it to be effective. Other places feature 30mL bottles with only 500mg, so you have to take three full droppers for a single dose. Here, each dropper has on average 50mg of full-spectrum oils.”
Crisp notes that at Snapdragon Hemp they keep a close eye on the terpene makeup in all their products. Terpenes are the organic molecules found in many herb gardens and apothecary shops—the oils that give lavender, spearmint, basil, and other plants their potent aromas.
“Our Breathe Easy blend is great for spearmint lovers,” Crisp illustrates. “It’s a super-minty dose of CBD mixed with spearmint for a nighttime blend; many of our users claim that CBD reduces inflammation and helps them with allergies due to its mix of tea tree, cloves, and mints.”
Another blend features blood orange, lemon, ginger, spearmint, and bergamot. That mix, Crisp claims, “helps to provide energy throughout the day—not just because of the CBD, but because of all those terpenes.”
Crisp and owner Josh Manning demonstrate their lab, where they create CBD products via two methods: distillation and press extraction. In distillation, raw oil is extracted from the hemp plant, then heated and vaporized repeatedly to produce the CBD components (the result looks like a dark-gold puddle of hardened honey). From there, Manning and Crisp can analyze the result to determine its exact properties.
By contrast, the press extraction method uses “heat infiltration to create a solventless base,” Manning explains. “Leftover chips are washed in ethanol to obtain the remainder of the oils; there is no waste.”
With Snapdragon’s production facility humming along, Manning hopes to expand to do wholesale work, upscaling his lab production until he can sell to stores and still let them offer retail products at excellent prices.
“Quality and price are the benefits of manufacturing our products right here,” he says. “We can obtain higher quality control when we make our products, and because it’s cheaper to make our own, we can pass that value along to the consumer.”
In addition to CBD oils and tinctures, visitors to Snapdragon Hemp can find vape cartridges and vaping systems; gummies, honey, and other edibles; pre-rolled cigarettes; lotions and creams; loose flowers; pet treats; rolling and smoking apparatus…even CBD-infused K-cups. If that doesn’t make you smile, nothing will—which may be reason enough to drop by.
Find Snapdragon Hemp at the ChattaVegan Fest on Sunday, October 19th in Coolidge Park. It should be a great event with a taste of the incredible selection of vegan food and fun that Chattanooga has to offer. You can get tickets now on Eventbrite.
You call also visit Snapdragon Hemp at the following local locations: Mack’s Highway Market, 4401 Ringgold Rd., Paradise Vapors of Cleveland, 2252 Spring Place Rd. SE, Snapdragon Hemp East Ridge, 6210 Ringgold Rd., and Snapdragon Hemp Hixson, 5104 Hwy. 153.
And you can always visit them online at snapdragonhemp.com to learn more about what makes Snapdragon the best local source for quality CBD products.