Coca
Erythroxylum coca and E. novogranatense
Active ingredient: cocaine, various alkaloids
There are two species of cultivated coca, each with two varieties. Which variety is grown where is determined by altitude and rainfall, each being adapted to highland or lowland, dry or wet conditions. In practice, they are all very similar in appearance and may have a common ancestor as yet undiscovered.
While not a psychedelic, we felt it was interesting to include as one of our herbs because it has a rich past and great future (when the UN can get over its confusion between plant and processed narcotic), hinted at in its use in once-popular drinks that delivered a mild, caffeine-like buzz.
Traditionally cultivated for its power to combat fatigue and altitude sickness, rich in calcium, potassium, phosphorus, vitamins (B1, B2, C, and E) and so high protein it is used as a flour in regional cuisine, coca is rightly considered a superfood and even an essential herb for living and working high in the Andes.
Coca has also been a vital part of the religious cosmology of the Andean peoples of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, northern Argentina, and Chile from the pre-Inca period through the present. Coca leaves are a crucial offering to the mountains, the sun, or the earth (Pachamama). It also serves as a powerful symbol of indigenous cultural and religious identity amongst a diversity of indigenous nations throughout South America.
Traditionally, coca leaves are chewed as a quid (held between the gums and cheek) or toasted, ground to a fine powder and mixed with an alkali (ash, baking soda or roasted, ground shells), the mix being called Ipadu or Mambé. When chewed, coca acts as a mild stimulant and suppresses hunger, thirst, pain, and fatigue.
Consumed in its natural form, coca does not induce a physiological or psychological dependence, nor does abstinence after long-term use produce symptoms typical of substance addiction.
The pharmacologically active ingredient of coca is the cocaine alkaloid, which averages 0.8% concentration in fresh leaves. The leaf contains a number of other alkaloids which probably have a balancing or “entourage” effect on the cocaine. Absorption of coca from the leaf is less rapid than when snorting purified forms of the alkaloid (almost all of which is absorbed within 20 minutes), taking 2–12 hours after ingestion to peak.
Coca’s modern zenith was as an ingredient in many patent medicines in the late-19th to early 20th century and most famously a key ingredient in Vin Mariani and Coca Cola.
Cocaine had first been extracted in 1859 by German chemist Albert Niemann. It was not until the 1880s that it started to become popular in modern medicine, dentistry and surgery. Initially hailed as a “wonder drug,” it was soon recognised as one of the most addictive substances on Earth.
Decline followed; globally criminalised and its peasant growers persecuted, the crime and violence induced by prohibition continues to this day, though there is hope that the innocent - even sacred - leaf can be rehabilitated.
Coca’s cultural importance was recognised by the United Nations in 2013, and now Bolivia, Peru and Columbia have partial exception to the international anti-narcotics laws, and trade in the maligned leaf as flour, tea and in ointments, is growing.
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High Cocktails is the first book of its kind to bring together non-alcoholic psychoactive cocktail recipes, creatively developed by the chefs of High Cuisine in collaboration with The Bulldog.
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