Anyone here ever prepared San Pedro? My cactii are getting pretty big, about 4 feet and I wanna chop the top off one and try some soon. The first time I did, I just ate the slices, but eating 12 inches of bitter cactus really sucks. haha. I was reading about the boiling/strain method, which I thought would be a little more pleasent, but it looks time consuming and messy, 2-24 hours of boiling, skinning, etc. Anyone know some alternatives?
The San Pedro cactus is the name given to psychoactive species of the genus Trichocereus (T. pachanoi, T. peruvianus) which comprises about thirty species, mainly found in the Andes. It is a large columnar cactus that grows up to heights of twenty feet and it contains mescaline, as does the well-known peyote cactus. The San Pedro cactus has also been found to have other psychoactive alkaloids. The usual native preparation of the cactus involves boiling slices of the stem for a number of hours and then, once cooled, the resulting liquid is drunk. Sometimes the San Pedro is used in conjunction with other psychoactive plants, such as coca, tobacco, Brugmansia and Anadenanthera. The hallucinogenic properties of its traditional use, including aguacolla, cardo, cuchuma, gigantón, hermoso, huando and, of course, San Pedro.
