OLEUM EXTRACTS

When it comes to Oleum, to say that it’s “just oil” might be the understatement of the year. Rooted in Seattle’s early medical Cannabis program and pushing the limits today with technology and passion for concentrates, Oleum is celebrating a decade of dabs with a new brand Neon, and continuing their commitment to leading by example with consistently top shelf extracts.

Long before Cannabis was legal, the early medical Cannabis program attracted innovators and risk takers to grow a plant that had landed many in prison – but was also helping cancer patients and freethinkers seeking relief from pain or illness that rejected the dominating pharmaceutical dogma.

It’s from those rebel roots that Owner/CEO Graham Jennings and Owner/Head Scien tist Aaron Palmer began experimenting with processing hash underneath their dispensary on Seattle’s Rainier Ave in the early 2010s. At that time, most dispensaries were limited to flower and canna-butter edibles – the vape cartridge had yet to be invented, and people were still extracting Rick Simpson oil with Naptha. It was Jennings and Palmer’s creative minds that pushed them to innovate and find ways to extract the essence of the plant using science and solvents that kickstarted the concentrate movement in Washington.

Oleum is a classic Latin word meaning oil, which makes sense given the brand's motto of “No additives, just oil.”

As one of the first brave processors using butane to open blast BHO, the duo were not satisfied with the early technology or risk of explosions, and set their minds to creating their own systems and learning how to apply already existing chemistry to the world of Cannabis. Together, Jennings and Palmer created and launched the brand Oleum in 2013 with the help of Director of Sales Justin Marsh – who made the first medical sale of the brand and still leads the sales division today, providing concentrates in a variety of tasty formats to over 300 recreational stores in Washington state.

Fast forward a decade and Oleum stands at the forefront of Cannabis concentrates, with accolades including the first company to create THCA in Washington (then called Wizard Stones), which paved the way for diamonds and sauce and other unique, high terpene and potency concentrates that were previously unheard of.

“None of this is new science, but it’s new to us and the industry! We’re always striving for more information and innovation,” Jennings shared when discussing the fast pace of Cannabis tech. “Aaron is still researching 10 years after fabricating his first extractor, and that’s what keeps us excited. The curiosity and knowledge to innovate is what drives our lab forward.”

As with any heritage company still in Cannabis, Oleum has grown in multiple phases – building out labs and applying the growth in technology to innovate each iteration, which has led them to a custom built facility in Tacoma with the capacity to process 500 pounds of material into oil each day. Utilizing new technologies and techniques, Oleum is known for putting quality first as they process flower and trim from 50-plus farms around the state.

“What used to take us two or three weeks to process, only takes us two or three days now,” Jennings explained excitedly. “We would have to operate 17 full farms to run the facility with our own material, which isn’t possible – so we focus on relationships with farms and collabs for each run. Last year we ran 1,100 different strains from nearly 50 farms, and every single run is strain specific at Oleum.”

Keeping batches between 500 and 1,000 grams of strain specific concentrate allows Oleum to have a consistently rotating menu, but also adds expenses in testing – a cost that the team is willing to pay to maintain the integrity of each product. Oleum currently processes live resin, cured resin, honey crystals, diamonds and sauce, and variations of these concentrates in both dabbable form and in disposable vaporizers. There’s also their award-winning Sugar Cones infused joints, and a commercial kitchen opening soon to add edibles and other new products to the expanding menu.

Inside the facility is a giant container sized cryogenic freezer that requires a space suit to walk inside when turned on, with the space to store nearly 15,000 pounds of fresh frozen material. With farms getting three or four crops a year in light dep or greenhouse, plus the indoor partnerships, the freezer is constantly filling and emptying with a steady flow of material. “We try to keep the organic, hippie-style circle of growers alive with collaborations, and we love to work with the most recognized growers to process their material,” Jennings explained.

“Working with brands like House of Cultivar, Tranquil Forest, K Savage and many more pumps up both our brands and allows consumers to try the flower and concentrate, and get the full experience of the plant.”

While the brand has long stood for purity and a lack of outside additives or flavors, the team recognized that consumers want a clean and potent, flavored vape cartridge option … and the new brand Neon was born. Delivering quality input to create potent distillate paired with botanical terpenes, Neon blends flavors like Melon Head and Sour Pebbles with a potent high for a flavored cartridge buzz that’s fun and without harmful artificial flavors.

“We stopped making distillate flavored cartridges about five years ago because we’ve always maintained ‘no additives’ as a brand at Oleum, but we have heard from stores and consumers that they want a high quality flavored cart from a brand they can trust,” Marsh said passionately. “We launched Neon to have a $20-$25 cartridge option with natural botanical terpenes and a potent, clean distillate with easy to understand sativa, hybrid and indica options.”

Oleum is still the strain-specific, additive-free brand that dabbers statewide know and love, paired with Neon to deliver options for everyone who loves concentrates. There’s no B brand or lower grade version of Oleum – the idea is that Neon and Oleum can exist together to serve both the heads and soccer moms concentrates that are processed with care for the plant and the end user, in a mission that goes back to the early days of medical Cannabis.

“The market has changed so much,” Marsh said pensively.

“Over the years we’ve had to adjust to the demand as the consumer base has grown larger, and the market decides whether we think it’s right or wrong. At the end of the day, you have to give people what they are asking for – clean, tasty concentrates in a variety of forms. And we’re dabbers too, so we want fire dabs and the variety ourselves … that’s a connection we have to our products that others do not.”