These Bakers Made Weed Gingerbread for Santa Claus

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These Bakers Made Weed Gingerbread for Santa Claus

"They used to get super stoned from baking the weed gingerbread. Nowadays, they leave all the windows open while they’re making this stuff."

Sinterklaas, or St. Nicholas, is a Dutch, Belgian, and French tradition, that involves St. Nicholas giving gifts to kids on December 5th. He's the Northern European Santa Claus, but he's the early bird that shows up in early December instead of Christmas. It's one of the most popular traditions in The Netherlands because Dutch people like to get free things.

Being Belgian, I've always thought it was a strange tradition. The celebration suddenly dies a tragic death the moment you hear your parents accidentally say that they shouldn't forget to set their alarm so they can fill your shoes. In the Netherlands, however, everyone pretends like they haven't got a clue.

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All photos by Rebecca Camphens

Kronkel, a coffee shop in Nijmegen (a city in the eastern section of The Netherlands) got that clearly. So they decided to give everyone who buys weed or hashish for 15 euros a free little pouch of gingerbread cubes (called pepernoten in Dutch) containing weed on December 4th and 5th in the spirit of Saint Nick. They've done this for almost thirty years with the same recipe. I wanted to partake in the tradition this year, so I paid them a visit.

"Whether Piet [St. Nicholas' companion] is black or white, small or big: he loves sharing Kronkel's gingerbread cubes," boasts the slogan on the counter at Kronkel. A customer who receives a pouch of weed gingerbread cubes in his hands, laughs: "My niece will be happy with this." According to the manager Stan Esmijer, who has worked in the coffee shop for twenty years, that's the kind of joke he hears the most. "Therefore, we clearly describe on each bag that the gingerbread contains cannabis and should be kept out of reach of children."

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Stan managed to make 6,500 weed pepernoten for this weekend. Each bag contains ten pieces, and is closed with a festive pink or light blue bow. "In total, I've added two hundred grams of marijuana to it," says Stan. "All pepernoten are handmade and each pouch is similar to a slice of space cake."

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Baking the weed pepernoten, just as with space cake in coffee shops in The Netherlands, does not happen in the shop. Three guys have been making kilograms of pepernoten in a small kitchen at home for thirty years now. "We've been busy for about 78 hours, but we don't mind. Every year, we always think: 'Nice, let's role for the next three days."

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The bakers, who want to remain anonymous for this article, are devastated after three days of baking. Stan says: "When they first started making these, they cosily sat down with each other in a small kitchen and assembled the pepernoten, one by one. They got super stoned from the air. Nowadays, they leave all the windows open while they're baking the stuff. The neighbors will smell something, but they'd rather smell the gingerbread air than a weed smell. That helps. However, if your hands come into contact with weed all day, it'll eventually absorb through your skin and up into your bloodstream. So if you make the gingerbread cubes with your hands, add weed, and reside in the area next to the oven, you must be careful that you won't get too stoned. There were moments we had to stop the bakers because they became too stoned. They'd then continue the next day."

"The recipe was developed by a woman that still works in the kitchen here," says Gilbert, the owner of Kronkel (who prefers not to be mentioned by his surname). "It's a simple gingerbread recipe which we experimented on a bit over the years. We use the weed remains that stick in bags. The crushed weed remains are quite similar in quality or even better than ordinary weed, but it sells less easily."

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This is Stan.

Kronkel has tried to do more things for Sinterklaas in the past. "Space chocolate letters for instance," says Gilbert. "We melted all kinds of chocolate lumps and added hashish to it, but it gave a very unpleasant color, like brown chocolate with some weird white spots. We've also tried that with bonbons, but that didn't work out as well. The pepernoten on the other hand, have always been quite popular."

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Regular customers ask when the magical gingerbread cookies will be available a week in advance, and they usually have eaten them all after one or two days. However, the coffee shop does not advertise the distribution. Stan says: "You cannot advertise because that encourages people to use more. I think you aren't actually even allowed to distribute this stuff, but selling is."

With their Sinterklaas gift, the coffee shop is looking for the limits of what is legal. "Only a few coffee shops do something for their customers. We do because we have a long-term vision. We have 46 employees and have put quite some money in the business to make something beautiful and fun out of it. It's a pity that we don't know how much longer we'll be able to do this. We might just get a leading political party that decides to stop all coffee shops in the near future. That may lead to the closing of our shop."

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Regular customers know what's going on in the shop throughout the year. They know that weed pepernoten are distributed around Sinterklaas, they know you can win nice prices with bingo, they know Friday night is always DJ night, and they know there's a membership card that gives you discounts. In addition to these specific events, the coffee shop is also one of the few in the Netherlands where you can eat extensively.

"We're not just a coffee shop, but a catering company, too. People talk about how good our coffee is and how popular our Twix- and chai milkshakes are," says Stan. "A coffee shop is not necessarily a dark space with a bunch of creepy people. It can also simply be a nice place."