It’s that time of year again, which is to say, roughly the same time as last year — but never exactly the same time — because it’s Hanukkah… right? Yes! As a genuine Jewish person with access to a lunar calendar, I can assure you that tonight is indeed the first night of the “festival of lights.”

Hanukkah commemorates the military victory of warrior priest Judah “The Hammer” Maccabee’s guerrilla army over the numerically superior forces of the Seleucid Empire and the re-dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem. It’s kind of a long story, but here’s the gist: A Syrian king tried to outlaw Jewish worship and claim the Temple — the nucleus of ancient Jewish culture and law — for Hellenistic rituals.

It didn’t work out.

In the end, the victorious Maccabee rebels regained control of the Holy Temple, which contained the menorah, a ceremonial oil lamp that needed to be lit to rededicate the temple for worship. Left with only enough oil to light the sacred lamp of the Holy Temple for one night, the Maccabees fired up the lamp anyway and it stayed lit — for eight days and nights.

Now, if you have enough oil, staying lit for eight days is just a matter of persistence and scheduling. But what if you only have one gram of oil? For me, making one gram of oil last eight days would be nothing short of miraculous. Frankly, I don’t recommend doing this on purpose, but if circumstances require you to be especially economical with your oil, here’s a few tricks — eight of them, because Hanukkah:

1. Take smaller dabs

Experiment with microdosing — it’s so hot right now anyway. This isn’t exactly advanced calculus here; if you take smaller dabs you’ll use less, which should help stretch out your stash. The nice thing about smaller dabs is they often provide a more accurate and balanced expression of the flavor profile than a huge glob.

2. Take larger dabs

Alternately, you can take larger dabs and get the heavy lifting out of the way when it comes to the desired impacts. I mean, if your goal is to get lit every day for eight days you could just portion your gram into eight 1/8-gram globs and take one every day. This method works best if combined with methods #3 and #6 — and all of these work best if you follow method #5.

3. Roll or press your shatter

This is just my pet theory, but I’m convinced the volume of vapor you pull from a dab has more to do with surface area than weight. Hear me out. Based on my extensive personal research, if you take a quarter gram of shatter and roll it up into a ball, it will produce less vapor when dropped on the nail than the same quarter gram pressed out into a thin strip and laid across a larger section of the heating element. This sounds weird, but in my experience it works and the pressing will generally improve the clarity of your shatter.

All you need to do is take some shatter, warm it gently and roll or press it out through a silicone mat or wax paper: I like to sandwich the shatter between two small non-stick mats and use a lighter and/or my hands to heat it slightly, then I use a lip balm tube or a lighter to press it out. This also makes it easier to take a “bigger” dab while using less product.

4. Re-heat liquefied oil

Assuming you’re taking proper low-temp dabs (because the alternative is dumb and dangerous), you should usually end up with at least a small amount of liquefied oil in your banger. Generally this would probably end up soaked into the ends of a q-tip, but if you’re looking to stretch your stash, you might consider running the torch under the nail for a few seconds, just until you see any activity in the oil, then recap and hit it again. The flavor profile will likely be diminished slightly, but there are still cannabinoids in there, and if you’re so inclined, you can get them.

5. Buy better oil

This is actually the easiest way to stretch your oil out as far as possible. It’s pretty hard to justify taking baby dabs of bland soup, but then again, it’s even harder to justify taking big ones — just don’t dab bland soup. It’s not worth the money you save, because you just end up buying more. It’s like buying one-ply toilet paper at the dollar store; sure you save money, but the poor quality always gets you in the end. And anyway, it’s a celebration! You don’t have to buy the $100-a-gram stuff, but get something tasty and potent — think of it as a present to yourself.

6. Follow up with some bud

You should really be doing this anyway, but if you’re one of those “no pre-run” people who doesn’t smoke flowers anymore, you should really reconsider. Sure, there’s no substitution for a great dab, but the full spectrum benefits of an old fashioned joint or bong bowl provide a fantastic compliment to the more refined effects and flavors of your oil.

7. Press rosin from your bud

The upside is you’ll have more dabs. The downside is you’ll be dabbing homemade rosin. Your call.

8. Pray to the wrathful Old Testament God for more oil

It can’t hurt.

TELL US, how do you make your cannabis concentrates last longer?

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