Luminous Botanicals’ line of Universal Cannabis Tonics are designed to be consumed in a few different ways. You can ingest them sublingually, squeeze an eyedropper full onto your favorite foods, use them as soothing massage oils, or use them to lube up and enhance sensual pleasure. That is a robust resume. After learning of all its capabilities, I almost felt like I missed out by ingesting sublingually and not through my lady parts. Contrarily, the laundry list of uses attached to these tonics made me think of the idiom, “Jack of all trades, master of none.” I wondered, What type of snake oil foolishness am I about to toss myself into? Surprisingly, my high was too extraordinary to second-guess the carnival barker-esque list of approved uses.

“This tincture evaporated like cotton candy as soon as it dispersed under my tongue.”

Luminous Botanicals’ line of cannabis tonics come in three varieties. Meadow is a 1:1 CBD:THC blend (5mg of each cannabinoid per 0.8ml dose) made with organic nut oils and coconut MCT oil. Rather than designating the products indica, sativa, or hybrid, each tonic is straightforwardly classified by its effects. Meadow is the pleasantly mild midpoint between the CBD-forward Earth blend and the more potent, THC-forward Sky blend.

To be perfectly honest, my first whiff of the Meadow Tonic enlarged my skepticism as the smell proved to be more generic drugstore body lotion than top-shelf tincture. It didn’t necessarily smell bad, but I wouldn’t describe the fragrance as mouthwatering either. Its perfume was synthetically floral, but the moment the eyedropper entered my mouth the smell transformed into a multilayered citrus fantasy. There were effervescent notes of Meyer lemon, bitter lime zest, tart grapefruit, and even a verdant suggestion of lemongrass. I was shook from both the deliciousness and my own narrow-minded first impressions.

The way the tincture moved around the bottle made me think it would be heavy once it landed on my tongue. It had the look of warm oil, easily swished but visibly viscous, so I assumed my mouth would be coated and I’d be smacking my oily tongue against my oily cheeks for a few seconds at least. But I was wrong, y’all. This tincture evaporated like cotton candy as soon as it dispersed under my tongue. Instead of an oily mouth moment, there was a lingering exhale of strong, sour lemonade. It had a refreshing mouthfeel I would never have anticipated from a bottle of sensual massage oil.

Even the high itself was unexpected. The onset was a sumptuous lurch into summertime giddiness. The body high radiated from my solar plexus like white light, and for a few moments, I felt weightless. The head high was a complimentary burst of sublimating illumination, turning the rest of the afternoon into a technicolor caricature of a perfect spring day.

“The high arrived with the same warm wash of contented stoniness.”

My expectations were void; every assumption I had made about the product so far had been proven otherwise. The smell did not foretell a cringey mouthful of Jergens, the texture was not tantamount to clarified butter, and the high provided the same overwhelming wash of contentment that a really strong dab or bong hit can deliver. And, on top of all that, the high maintained itself for a large swath of my afternoon.

Furthermore, when taken later in the evening, the tonic’s effects were perfectly appropriate for my energy level, just as they had been during peak daytime hours. I’ve found this same responsiveness with many 1:1 products, and in this instance, the high arrived with the same warm wash of contented stoniness but tempered to my lower-energy, couch-bound self. I spent the rest of the evening wrapped up in my sketchbook, my creativity fueled by the mildly spacey head high.

Luminous Botanicals is onto something here. I would leap at the opportunity to fashion a cocktail or edible complimented by Meadow’s masterful flavor profile. And the weightlessness of the oil does, in fact, make for a pleasant massage experience. I can’t speak to the sensuality aspect of this product (yet), but I remain convinced of its vast effectiveness. For the record, the idiom is sometimes expanded to the couplet, “Jack of all trades, master of none, though oftentimes better than master of one.” And I think that applies here—big time.