NOTE: The space paste recipe has been out for some time, and I have been doing a lot of research into how it works and why it works. Currently, I don't claim to have all the answers, and unless someone reading this post DEVELOPED the recipe, I don't know if any of us will ever have the full story. See the space paste thread for details on how I developed these theories. I will be the first to admit that there may be conflicts between my posts in the space paste thread and here, but I am in a different place of research now, and I have integrated what I have learned along the way (offline), so bear with me. ALL CONTRIBUTIONS ARE MOST WELCOMED - the Human Genome Project was a success because of online collaboration with all kinds of people, and I hope this space paste/space booze project will have similar success with collaboration.

Now a way to try space paste without eating 2 tablespoons of spices! The procedure is ridiculously easy. This creates a high proof alcoholic beverage with hallucinogenic properties. This recipe is legal on most locations; if nutmeg is illegal in your area, this recipe would be illegal as well. It is up to each individual to research the laws of your area to determine if all ingredients are legal to use.

THEORY:
Space paste has been tested by many individuals with good results. However, there are 2 things about the space paste experience that most individuals report as difficult:

1. Space paste can last upwards of 30 hours. This makes it impractical in certain
situations.
2. Space paste does not taste good. It is hard to eat the stuff and many are turned off
just because of this aspect of the experience.

The chemical compounds that produce psychedelic effects in nutmeg are part of the volatile fraction of nutmeg oil, and they are all soluble in ethanol. Nutmeg oil comprises about 2% dry weight of the nutmeg kernel. When ingesting the whole spice, many unpleasant effects have been reported including gastric pain, lethargy, and flu-like symptoms. It is not known if this is due to the hallucinogenic components of nutmeg or to other components in the spice. Anecdotal reports suggest that the essential oil of nutmeg, when ingested, produces an experience with many less side effects than ingesting the whole spice. The author therefore theorizes that extracting the ethanol-soluble, hallucinogenic fraction from the whole spice will produce a more pleasant experience.

Why not just extract nutmeg, without the other ingredients in space paste. This experiment was conducted by the author. It worked, but it was found that a lot of extract was needed to achieve psychedelic effects. Space paste has been shown in numerous trials to be effective at increasing the potency of nutmeg, thus allowing the user to experience its effects at a lower dose. 2 tablespoons of space paste contain about 1.5 teaspoons of nutmeg, and yet the experience is powerful; 1.5 teaspoons of nutmeg produces a much less pronounced effect. Therefore, the author theorizes that extract of space paste will produce a more pronounced experience than a straight nutmeg extract.

MATERIALS:
1 750mL bottle of high proof ethanol (at least 75.5% ABV) - it must be consumable (no
denatured ethanol)
1 batch of modified space paste. Follow the space paste recipe, but DO NOT ADD almonds, pistachios, or maple
syrup. The nuts will rot and ruin your product. The maple syrup is extremely viscous
and makes extraction more difficult. Use 1 part = 1 tablespoon.
Note (edit): I've noticed two types of nutmeg. One is a sandy brown color; do not use this one. The other is more of a reddish/gold color. This is the one you want for your space paste. The sandy brown one does not work well, and often makes me sick.

PROCEDURE:
Make the space paste, leaving out the almonds, pistachios, and maple syrup from the recipe. Mix the entire batch of space paste with 750mL of high proof ethanol, in a glass or stainless steel container with a tight fitting lid; if you use plastic or metals other than stainless steel, the ethanol may extract unwanted and potentially toxic byproducts from the container during extraction!.

In my location, the highest alcohol concentration available is 75.5% ABV, and it worked fine. Experiments with 50% ABV vodka resulted in a rather weak final product. If higher proof alcohol is available, it may potentially yield a stronger product. I don't have enough experience with making the stuff to tell where the diminished returns start.

Next, shake the mixture for a while. How long? A while - maybe 5 minutes. Now look - you'll see that the entire mixture is extremely cloudy. If you leave it sit, though, in about 15 minutes it will have separated into two layers. The top layer is what we want, and it will be the ethanol which has now been colored a dark reddish color. The bottom is all the solids, which we don't want. Repeat this shaking and settling procedure for 3-5 days, shaking whenever you remember and then letting the mixture settle.

After 3-5 days, you can drink it. Actually you can try it earlier, but it's much better after 3-5 days. I did not notice a significant difference after that point.

DOSE RECOMMENDATIONS:
2 tablespoons of space paste is pretty strong, in my opinion. You get really high, and it lasts a long time. The question is how much booze = 2 tablespoons of paste? Well, let's do some quick math: if we assume that the strength of 2 tablespoons is the desired dose and we assume a full extraction, then a batch of space paste has 6 total doses, so if we divide 750mL by 6 we get 125mL.

OK - don't drink 125mL of high proof ethanol! This might kill you, or at least make you extremely drunk AND trip, a dangerous combination. But a few more things to consider. The human digestive system does not fully extract all the oils from what we eat. Some of it stays in the food being digested and is excreted. So to say that 2 tablespoons of paste are completely absorbed is probably wrong. Additionally, ethanol is miscible with water, which is why it can pass the blood brain barrier even though it is not oily - it's called the Trojan Horse effect in a lot of the literature because the ethanol is sneaking into the brain by mixing with water. This will allow a lot of the space paste oils to be carried along with the ethanol to the brain, and then to be readily accepted across the blood brain barrier due to their high lipidity. So it would make sense to say that less will go further with our recipe.

My recommendation is to drink one shot of the space booze to start, about 1.5 oz or 45mL. I drank one shot and was pleasantly surprised to feel effects THE ENTIRE DAY. If you've ever taken space paste, I would say it was about 25% less intense than 2 tablespoons of straight space paste. I woke up the next day with no residual effects. I have tried it 5 times, every time with the same experience. I have not yet increased the dose, so if you do, let us know.

Effects begin for me right away, but pronounced effects begin after about 4 hours. Each person's body is different, though. Happy spacing.

Wait a minute. Is this for real? This actually works? This is big news if it does since it potentially means that the compound(s) that make the myristicin and other allylbenzenes in nutmeg active in 100% of people are soluble in ethanol.

It's currently unknown exactly how nutmeg can be 100% effective yet its principle active compounds are only 30% effective or less. That helps to narrow down the possible compounds responsible for this.

Then again, myristicin produces psychedelic effects on its own in 30% of people according to studies I've read. So it's possible that this "space booze" won't work for everyone.

You wouldn't happen to have ever taken myristicin or nutmeg essential oil without anything else added? If you have, and it had notable psychedelic effects, then this "space booze" isn't going to work for most people.

I would also be interested to find out whether an alcohol extraction of nutmeg alone is effective, since it could be that the other herbs are responsible for activating the effects of "space booze" in this case.

Nonetheless, interesting thread. I might try this out one day. I've used fresh ground nutmeg before but I've still never tried space paste. I plan on trying it soon. I have nutmeg but I just need to get the other materials together.

It definitely works for me. Space paste always works for me. Has anyone tried space paste and not tripped? The other ingredients in space paste make the nutmeg much more potent and pleasant - I would highly recommend it. 1 shot of space booze does not make me out of my mind, but it is very noticeable and it lasts about 14 hours for me. It takes between 2 and 4 hours for it to start working for me.

BTW - the taste of the space booze is not that great, but it's over very quickly; not so much with space paste. Once you get past the taste though, I say it's definitely worth it.

I'm not denying that space paste works for everyone. It contains ground nutmeg which will make anyone trip to some extent at high enough doses. But nutmeg essential oil and myristicin only work on their own for some people.

If you happen to be one of those people who could get effects from nutmeg essential oil without anything added, then this space booze might just work for you because it's extracting the oils from the nutmeg.

From the reports that I've read, nutmeg essential oil and myristicin produces a trip that lasts in the range of 14 hours when it's activated by other means than consumption as nutmeg powder, ie. oilahuasca methods.

So it's hypothetically possible that space booze won't work for most people. But I'd have to see other people try this before I'm convinced of anything.

I hear what your saying. A few things. Nutmeg does NOT produce psychedelic effects for everyone. Just read reports around the net, people say things like, "it just felt like a delirious flu" or "it was awful, I was dizzy and sick for 2 days." I've read stuff like that all over the place. The reason for that, I think, is lack of goodies in the whole nutmeg. I've discussed this in the space paste thread. There are 2 kinds of nutmeg, one that has a light, sandy brown color and another type that has a more red/gold color. It's a subtle difference, but you notice it when you see them next to each other. Using whole ground nuts is actually worse, in my opinion, because you can't see inside the nut to see if it's red/gold or sandy brown. I've heard the myristicin is a reddish color, and that elemicin is a goldish color, so maybe that's what is present in the good nutmeg. I don't know. I just know that sandy brown colored nutmeg is a waste and will make you extremely sick.

That being said, use red/gold colored nutmeg.

Try space paste to get perspective on my theory for this project. In the space paste thread, I wrote up an annotated list of all space paste ingredients, but here is a basic summary. The other ingredients in space paste mostly inhibit CYP3A4, which makes up 60% of first pass metabolism in the liver. Everything our bodies process from digestion must go through the liver, so knocking out the first pass will theoretically make less product go further. The other major contributions of space paste are MAO inhibition (black pepper + tumeric) and the contribution of aldehydes. If you follow very old theories about how allylbenzene is processed by the body, aldehydes are necessary because they link up with the allylbenzene compounds and activate them (I'm simplifying it but that's the basic idea). The high proof ethanol will extract most of the stuff we want (aldehydes, MAOIs, and CYP3A4 inhibiting compounds) along with the allylbenzenes from the spices (myristicin, elemicin, saffrole, estragole) and terpenes, which may temper the experience in much the same way that they do with THC in cannabis. All these things will be extracted into the ethanol. So I'm basically saying that space paste = oilahuasca; that's the whole theory, that the compounds need to be activated somehow in the body by inhibiting some things and allowing reactions to occur and then you trip. Space booze just allows me to control the dosing better.

I tried nutmeg essential oil one time, and it didn't really do anything for me. But all nutmeg is different, and I didn't have a GC/MS sheet for it (I just got it at a shop near where I live) so I can't tell you how potent it was, or the chemical makeup; it could have come from sandy brown nutmeg for all I know, and that never makes me trip. I didn't really feel that sick from the essential oil, but it made my GI system rather sick and I will never try any straight essential oils ingested again. The aroma makes me feel very good though. It also is great to add a drop of nutmeg oil to cannabis for me.

The thing is, space paste is more like really heavy oral THC than space booze. Space booze, for some reason, is different and reminds me more of a classic psychedelic at a low dose (the closest thing I can think of is shrooms). I don't have any explanation as to why I feel that way. They are both good. It might be a dose thing, and since I don't want to OD on the ethanol, I take less than the full dose I'm used to taking with space paste. Who knows. Perhaps at some point down the road I'll try evaporating more of the ethanol so less space booze goes farther.

You're right about nutmeg not being psychedelic for everyone. I should have said psychoactive. Nutmeg is psychoactive in all people. And it has been shown that myristicin and allylbenzenes are responsible for these effects. If you remove the allylbenzenes from ground nutmeg, you will experience minimal psychoactive effects.

I can't add much about how color of the nutmeg will indicate the type and intensity of effects, but I can say that all the nutmeg I've ever used was a dark rusty orange and that it produced moderately strong psychedelic effects that lasted for over 12 hours, with the rest of the trip being like oral Cannabis (at least seemingly so, since I've never used oral Cannabis).

I've only used fresh ground nuts from Indonesia though. There is a study that tested the chemical composition of nutmeg grown in different countries. Indonesian nutmeg has the highest concentration of allylbenzenes. So maybe that's why it worked so well for me.

I personally think that the freshness and country of origin are more important things to consider than the color. Nutmeg from some countries has almost no allylbenzenes in it. So that would help to explain the really bad effects that some people get from nutmeg, just like you thought.

I'd guess that good nutmeg will produce psychedelic effects in all people. That doesn't mean that there won't be other effects as well. Some people might get psychedelic as well as a combination of semi-deliriant, empathogenic, or stoning effects. I've heard of people describing nutmeg as having all these effects. It might be due to differences in individual's metabolism.

But my point is that nutmeg alone = crappy oilahuasca. And space paste = better but not complete oilahuasca. The extra stuff in space paste isn't necessary to partially activate the allylbenzenes in nutmeg. It's just supposed to increase the potency, pleasantness, and psychedelic effects. And properly activated oilahuasca is supposed to be much better than space paste.

But since it seems like you don't get any effects from nutmeg essential oil alone, that adds credibility to the idea that an alcoholic extract of space paste would work for most people.

I have another question. Have you ever tried taking the space booze and then eating the nuts and other components that you omitted? I've heard that all the components of space paste are needed to make it work the best. And I know that they contain helpful compounds such as the benzaldehyde in almonds. Space booze might work a lot better if you somehow added the other parts back in.

12 hour nutmeg experience, in my opinion, is probably the sandy brown stuff. It feels psychedelic for at most, 4 hours, and then a serious lethargy sets in. Good nutmeg is like a cross between THC and E and it lasts about 30 hours.

I did some more research into countries of origin. The interesting thing that I found is that every study shows something completely different in terms of GC/MS data from any particular country of origin. That says to me that there is not a necessary link between country of origin and the amount of allylbenzenes in the actual nutmeg kernel.

Here are some links:
http://wwwchem.uwimona.edu.jm/lectures/nutmeg.html
http://220.227.138.214:8080/dsp...+XIII+No.2+(135-139).pdf

Notice how the values for Indian nutmeg are different from every single sample. To say that "Indian nutmeg is X" is quite hard to really generalize. Every region or specific plant strain is going to have a different content of chemical constituents. So I don't go by country of origin. I go by color. Elemicin is a yellow color, and myristicin is a red color, so a gold/red color in ground nutmeg tells me that these two components are there in generous amounts. Sandy brown is the color of nutmeg pulp, and will probably only have minimal psychedelic effects, with sedation to follow.

I completely agree that space paste works best with everything; the only thing that I can say you can definitely omit is the maple syrup (having made A and B batches, they were identical in effect). But the nuts, ideally, would be in the mix. However, I'm not sure if they help with absorption or with activation. If they only help with absorption, then the alcohol extract, which absorbs quickly and goes to the brain, won't need the nuts. But if they help with activation, then we would need them.

Almonds contribute aldehydes - that's covered by cinnamon and cumin. Pistachios have substances that may help activate allylbenzenes (in theory) but the major components of pistachios for this purpose (daidzein and genistein) are also contained in soy milk. So just mix the space booze into soy milk and you'd be good to go.

TRIALS ON WILLING SUBJECTS
Trial 1:

30 year old male is informed of the space booze project in passing, and he states that he would like to test it. He is given 1.5 oz of space booze. The space booze had previously been separated from the solids. It had a dark red color and was very clear. It smelled strongly of spices.

T0:00 The subject drinks the space booze mixed into 8 oz of grape juice.
T0:10 The subject asks me how the mixture was prepared. I tell him. He says, "It tastes like chili."
T0:25 The subject tells me, "I am very not sober."
T0:45 The subject tells me that he feels very jazzed up. He feels that his judgment is altered. He tells me that he asked a girl out on a date that he normally would never talk to. The subject leaves the testing area to go home.
T4:00 The subject calls me to tell me that the dose was "great", that he feels a bit tired and is going to take a nap.
T14:00 The next day, the subject calls me and states that "that stuff you gave me was great. I was high all day, even after my nap." I ask him to describe his experience. He states that "it was like being a little bit drunk, but I saw tracers and felt very excited. Towards the end of the day I got tired and had deep sleep."

COMMENTS: The experience reported by the subject is very similar to my experiences with space booze.

There is always going to be a variation among individuals, but even the links you posted say that there is a correlation between region of origin and phenylpropanoid content.

Here is a quote from the Jamaican nutmeg link regarding myristicin:

Here are two quotes from the introduction of the paper you linked to about Indian nutmeg:


I have also attached another study (that I'm pretty sure I've seen on this forum before) that supports the previous things I quoted:




In my opinion, if you can tell the color of your nutmeg, then you are already doing it wrong. Preground nutmeg in most cases has been sitting around losing potency for a while before you even buy it. Buying whole nuts and grinding them yourself is the better choice since the actives won't have been able to evaporate nearly as much. I don't think I've ever read a report where freshly ground nutmeg didn't produce the desired effects. And all you need is a coffee grinder to grind it.

Another thing to note is that Indian nutmeg is not commonly available. Here is a quote from the study I attached:


So when considered on a statistical basis, according to every study referred to here, nutmeg from the East Indies > nutmeg from India > nutmeg from the West Indies. There may be times when you get an unexpectedly weak or strong batch, but numbers don't lie.



According to the most recent oilahuasca theories (but they are actually pretty old) the aldehydes are meant to inhibit the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase (AlDH). This enzyme deactivates allylbenzenes by turning them into a carboxylic acid form and preventing them from forming adducts with free amines in the body such as piperidine, pyrrolidine, and dimethylamine.

Having multiple sources of AlDH inhibitors will better inhibit this enzyme just based on the higher dose and possible synergy.

@PowerfulMedicine - That's an interesting draw from the listings that I've posted. Yes, Jamacaican nutmeg was shown in that study to have lower myristicin content, but look at the data from India - there were some samples from India that had extremely high myristicin content, and there some that had extremely low content. What that tells me is that the country doesn't equal the quality. I know the conclusion section says "moderate" but look at the actual data. How could there be such a wide variety when the nutmeg growing region of India is rather localized? To me that says each tree or subset of groves has a certain content from a variety of environmental factors.

I've used whole nutmeg many times, but I've had the same variance of potency that people have experienced with ground nutmeg. Perhaps if I get a good batch, it will be stronger, but how will I know without specifically purchasing from a tree/grove that I've known to work in the past? Just a thought. Even if we agree to disagree here, there is a lot to work with. I'm glad to be working with you! It's really good to have a different perspective on this problem.

OK - so let's say that you're right, and more ADH inhibitors (i.e. more aldehydes) make the activation step stronger. So the best way to blend almonds into the space booze would be with bitter almond extract. I can get bitter almond extract at the supermarket near my house. You could drop some bitter almond extract into your space booze. Alternatively, if we are really just looking for more aldehydes, you could double or even triple the cumin content - the only significant contribution of cumin is aldehydes.

It's also interesting that estragole (methyl chavicol) is present in many of the components of space paste. Tarragon, basil, and oregano all have estragole. Estragole inhibits CYP3A4. It also is itself an allylbenzene. My theory is that this compound may induce nutmeg action by competitive inhibition - whatever is destroying elemicin, myristicin, and safrole will probably also target estragole. I've tried a modified space paste where nutmeg was removed and replaced with 5x basil, and I did feel altered but not exactly "psychedelic". It kind of felt like runner's high. Maybe the creator of space paste intended to knock out CYP3A4, but were unintentionally creating an environment where other allylbenzenes can thrive because destructive enzymes have to target our desired goodies AND estragole?

The other thing I want to ask - have you ever had success with current oilahuasca practice? I tried that a long time ago, but the only thing that worked for me was basil oil, and I got the same basic effects from the basil-modified space paste. It was like a runner's high. I've seen reports that people have "entity contact" from basil - maybe it's true, but it seems unlikely to me just based on my experience. That being said, I only tried a few times and I didn't adhere to any kind of dietary restrictions. Like I said before, no more straight EO's for me because they destroy my GI system.

Nutmeg always works, in some form. But oilahuasca does not work for most people. So to me, that says that the oilahuasca theory has a hole of some sort. Something in nutmeg makes it work that might not be covered by oilahuasca theory. That's why I made the annotated space paste recipe. If you want I'll repost, or you can look at the space paste thread at the bottom of page 2.

Have you gotten oilahuasca to work for you? What were the circumstances? And are you planning to try the recipe? I'm not being confrontational, but: theories are great starting points, but at the end of the day, it either works or it doesn't. If people try it and it works, we can figure out the why later!

Just my 2 cents worth...

Could the golden/reddish colour of the "better" nutmeg be from mace, the orange to red coloured stuff that covers the nutmeg nut being left on when it is ground? Could this be the reason that certain nutmeg works, and others don't? I think the orange mace comes from Indonesia and the red one from somewhere in the Caribbean. Or is it possible that the different nuts themselves contain wildly different %'s of goodies and baddies?

Years ago I decided tried out nutmeg and eventually settled on an alcohol (54% vodka) extraction after trying to swallow a teaspoon of the powder was impossible. I tossed 2 nuts with mace still attached (orange mace) into a coffee grinder and blitzed them up. I tossed all of the powder into a jar and left for a week, shaking occasionally.

I really didn't know what dosage to try so I took a shot, and an hour later another. I felt hideously nauseas and sweaty, but there was something there that I thought may be worthy of further experimentation. Sadly 26hrs or so later I was still completely spaced out, sweating like a madman and had tunnel vision (trying to cross a quiet suburban street took me about an hour), which made me stop my nutmeg experiments.

Any thoughts?

Peace

@PrimalWisdom: I'm not surprised you felt hot and nauseous; many times after taking nutmeg I get the same symptoms. I was wondering how much vodka you used to do the extraction? I'm not sure the true solubility of nutmeg constituents in ethanol - I just know that they are soluble, but not the g/L rate. Also, did you remove the clear liquid from the solids, or did you mix the solids into your shot? Having no solids should help the nausea somewhat. But many people experience symptoms similar to you when using straight nutmeg. It's possible also that with an ethanol extraction, the actives get absorbed easier into the body, so you could have actually taken too much by taking 2 shots (it may be different dosing than whole nutmeg, a project to determine).

Space paste always makes me much less nauseous than straight nutmeg. In the space paste thread, I posted my trials with removing the nuts in the mix. I found that I was nauseous until I ate the nuts, then the nausea went away. I can't tell you why that is. Some theories I have are (1) the nuts somehow increase absorption, (2) the nuts are food and anecdotally, many people find that taking hallucinogens with food decreases nausea, (3) the nuts don't expand in liquid (if you soak nutmeg in water, you can see that the powder expands and actually absorbs some water, and this might upset your GI system; the overabundance of nuts might make it harder for nutmeg to do this. Also there is less nutmeg per teaspoon in space paste, so that effect might be less for that reason too).

I have made ethanol extractions of straight nutmeg before. I added 2 tablespoons of nutmeg to 3 oz of 75.5% ethanol (2 standard shots worth). But when I took the resulting tincture, I only used about 0.5 oz of the resulting mixture. This produced noticeable effects. I gave the tincture to a friend as well, and he also reported effects, stating that "I was high all day. It took about 4 hours to start working." He only took about 0.25mL of tincture. Again, based on my dosing and my friend's dosing, perhaps you OD'ed and that caused the severe symptoms. Thoughts?

You also raise an important question with mace. For a while, I preferred mace to nutmeg. But again, if you look at the data from the studies above, or from other GC/MS data, there is just as wide a variety of allylbenzenes in mace as there is in nutmeg. Look at Shulgin's paper on nutmeg where he takes samples from various distributors, some of which were apparently sourced from the same location! The article is available here. So I don't know if it's better or worse. I had different side effects from mace, it just felt different to me. Mace generally has more myristicin and less of the other allylbenzenes, but again it's hard to generalize here. If you try an extraction of mace, let me know.

Thanks for the reply oilman.

I did filter the extraction, which took forever due to the nutmeg clogging filters - kinda reminds me of rue extractions today. I should have just decanted, but I was convinced the nutmeg was holding some booze.

it was cloudy and not clear at all, so I'm sure some nutmeg material was still present. I am still to read the article by Shulgin (thanks btw, love him) I'm pretty sure the 2nd shot was too much, but one learns patience as they grow (I was pretty young, but still had quite a few "intrepid explorer' experiences under my belt) I was just not convinced I'd consumed enough, and the horrid taste needed justification!

I hadn't eaten anything that day, and looking back this could have been the main cause of the nausea, but even the thought of food made me wretch in a sweaty mess as the bathroom swayed and pulsed with my throbbing head. Paradoxically the swaying of the bathroom was one of the things that made me feel there was more to nutmeg than just prison stories and sweat.

I'm keen to try the space paste/booze as I have all the ingredients on hand, I'll keep the nuts seperate and use them as a snack in case. Unfortunately we don't get Everclear here and the strongest vodka (84%) was taken off the market after some idiots died drinking it. The strongest drinkable alcohol we have is 54% so I'd have to use that. I don't think I could munch some paste on bread tbh.

I'll see when I can get to it, but this certainly does pique my interest, and I like spices

I'll post any results here.

Peace, and happy travels!

I've only gotten oilahuasca to work once and it only sort of worked. I was using sweet basil oil (the methylchavicol chemotype) and I got speedy antidepressant effects instead of the standard effects of basil oil alone.

Another time with sweet basil oil I predosed with the basil oil alone and then took a whole bunch of enzyme inhibitors a few hours later and took more basil oil but didn't get any notable effects from the basil oil which suggests to me that the methylchavicol was altered enough to prevent it from having sedative effects but that it didn't make it past some other stage of metabolism.

Basil oil on its own is actually very pleasant IMO. It has a dreamy, sedative, semipsychedelic, mild Cannabis sort of effect if you take enough. This is probably the runner's high feeling that you got from methylchavicol in the past.

Methylchavicol is interesting in that there is supposed to be a reverse tolerance that develops if you use it enough because it starts to deplete the necessary enzymes and otherwise alter your metabolism in a way that allows you to activate it without anything added. Methylchavicol therefore can act as its own competitive inhibitor. And the idea that methylchavicol might act as a competitive inhibitor in space paste is something that came up on the old forum where most of the oilahuasca info is at.

The oilahuasca methods that most people are aware of are very outdated. A whole bunch of other enzymes have been found that need to be inhibited and induced and there are a whole bunch of things that have to be avoided in order to maximize chances of activation. Namely quercetin, a compound that is in so many things. I haven't tried these newer methods yet.
______________________

Another thing about the nuts is that they add fats and oils that are easily digestible and stimulate digestion. One old trick that has helped some people activate oilahuasca is to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then take the essential oils. In space paste, the almonds and pistachios serve the same purpose as well as adding beneficial compounds.

Absorption isn't the only issue regarding allylbenzenes. In fact, rapid absorption is possibly a bad thing if it causes the allylbenzenes to bypass a necessary step for activation.
_____________________

I definitely plan on trying space paste and this space booze relatively soon. I have the nutmeg. I just need to get the other stuff.

P.S. ADH inhibitors are not the same thing as AlDH inhibitors. ADH is alcohol dehydrogenase. This enzyme turns alcohols into aldehydes, which is something we want. So this enzyme should be induced.

well since we're drinking alcohol with it, it should induce automatically!

Actually alcohol will inhibit ADH by acting as a competitive inhibitor since it is metabolized by ADH. The ADH needs to act on alcohol versions of the allylbenzenes created by CYP2C9 or CYP2E1, although there are other enzymes that can perform the same actions and there is another possibly more likely path to activation that doesn't rely on ADH (according to the most current theories).

Alcohol will induce ADH after the alcohol is metabolized and the levels of ADH start to rebound, but this might not be very significant and will occur once it is too late to help the allylbenzenes.

Oh. And genistein inhibits the enzymes UGT1A9 and UGT2B7. These glucuronosyltransferase enzymes inactivate allylbenzenes by conjugating the alcohol forms. Genistein also induces Oxidative 17bHSD2, an enzyme that is beneficial (if not necessary) for activating allylbenzenes.

So this is another reason that pistachios are important to space paste and why it might ba good idea to add it back to space booze.

I'm not sure I believe in this theory. Nutmeg does not contain genistein, and it works. What induces Oxidative 17bHSD2, if it's necessary for activation, in nutmeg? Again, if you feel you need it, drink the space booze with soy milk, it has plenty of it.

Another thing, if the oilahuasca procedure works, then why do hardly any people get effects from it? I'm looking to work majorly backwards - what is inhibited/induced by straight nutmeg? After we understand this piece, then we can work forwards from there and purposefully inhibit or induce what we need to really trip out.

@powerfulmedicine: You got me thinking about why nutmeg works for pretty much everyone, but essential oil does not. Now according to the research I did on nutmeg for the annotated space paste recipe, there are 3 fatty compounds in nutmeg butter (the fatty, non-volatile oils which are NOT part of the essential oil), which are Macelignan, Myrislignan, and Trimyristin.

Trimyristin is a saturated fat and a sedative. It also has been shown to increase anxiety and depression in mice - take a look at this research paper. It comprises 20-25% dry weight of the nutmeg kernel (Wikipedia]Wikipedia). The depressive effects are definitely there when taking nutmeg. Trimyristin is insoluble in water (Wikipedia). Perhaps trimyristin acts as a transport system for allylbenzenes? They should be soluble in the trimyristin after extraction by the stomach/GI system. This might help explain the time delay - saturated fats take a long time for the body to process ... ?

Macelignan has potential use as a skin whitening agent. It does this through enzyme inhibition. It has been shown to effectively inhibit melanin synthesis (see this research article abstract on PubMed). I don't know how this might relate to enzymes in the GI track, but it's a start. Maybe macelignan contributes to the inhibition of something which opens the door to allylbenzene activation?

Myrislignan has been shown to reduce feeding activity (perhaps it causes nausea?) in rats. It also forms a number of interesting metabolites in the rat liver studies. See this PubMed abstract for details.

I wonder if the water extract of nutmeg has little nausea and little depressive effects because much less of the myrislignan and trimyristin are able to become soluble? Although I haven't had nausea or sedation with space booze, perhaps at a higher dose I would?

There could be other things in nutmeg that induces Oxidative 17bHSD2. This enzyme turns alcohol forms of allylbenzenes into phenyl vinyl ketones (or possibly aldehydes depending on the exact type of alcohol formed).

Alkaloids that can be formed as simple adducts of free amines and allylbenzene phenyl vinyl ketone forms have been detected in vivo in animal studies. I'll have to find the studies and post them later.

And it is also possible that the compounds in nutmeg cause the allylbenzenes to form aldehydes, which can be created by other enzymes such as ADH or CYP2E1.

The newest theories might not work for everyone. But by the time that they came out, people were already suspicious of the whole idea. I haven't even read a report of anyone using the new theories outside of the old forum where the theories came from. They definitely worked better for some people there.

But alas, that forum is essentially dead. So very little experimentation goes on there anymore. Plus, the new theories require a really complex and often expensive set of herbs and supplements, some of which are uncommon.

It takes time, research, effort, and money to get oilahuasca working. And most people don't actually follow the guidelines. Hell, most people are still stuck on the first versions of the theory where chamomile and cinnamon were though to be all that was needed for activation.

A lot of people got really frustrated and just gave up, thinking that the entire thing was bullshit and a scam and whatnot. But I'm glad that some people can still see that since nutmeg works then oilahuasca must be able to work if we can figure it out.

The only thing about this is oilahuasca might already be figured out, but people just don't want to give it a chance.

I think the basic system, that the oils in spices can make you trip under the right circumstances in the body, is undeniable because we see it with nutmeg. But there are multiple issues with using essential oils to get the effects. The first major issue is absorption. Very oily substances are hard to absorb, and even when they do absorb, it often takes a long time to get processed by the body. Also, are bodies are mostly water so that's working against absorption too. I wonder about making an emulsion of some sort, similar to the ouzo effect. Perhaps watered down space booze will be more stable due to this emulsion effect?

Another issue working against oilahuasca is that essential oils have a lot of crap in them that we might not want to ingest. These portions often have even higher lipidity than allylbenzene compounds and are very hard to remove from the oil (one such example is carvone). These compounds could cause gastric pain, headaches, etc and are undesirable.

This is why I've moved away from straight oils and I'm trying to use whole spices with extractions.