Although I enjoy smoking tobacco year round, winter seems to be the season especially suited for it.

Long nights, gray days, and the dry, chill air on the lungs provide time, mood, and impetus for walking (or sitting) and smoking. What better way to embrace the darkness? A man can, after all, read for only so long.

All summer I work and travel and play and pedal, drink and dink around. And then the seasons change, and something in my soul shifts. In the words of David Grayson, “Summer indeed is for activity, winter for reflection.”

If smoking tobacco from a pipe doesn’t aid reflection, I don’t know what does.

The first snow of the year fell here just a couple of weeks ago, and yesterday we received our second snowfall. My friend Dave was eager to walk and talk and smoke, so he and Jeremy and Colby and I convened at the mouth of Rock Canyon to do precisely that.

After a short jaunt upward and inward, we paused at a campsite to sit and toke. Jeremy found an old galvanized pot to sit upon. Dave lay down his jacket. Colby, fit and flexible as he is, squatted. I opened a thermos of black coffee, took a sip, and passed it around.

Each of us dispensed with various goodies. Out came some dark chocolate, some pipe tobacco, a bit of rye whiskey, and a Native American smoking additive called kinnikinnick, meaning “that which is mixed,” which in our case was red osier dogwood, or what is commonly called red willow bark.

I’d heard of it before, but had never smoked it. As soon as I got a whiff from Dave’s pipe, I exclaimed, “Damn, that smells good.”

I have smoked just about every other smokable substance there is in this world. It started with some unknown tree bark when I was ten. In my early teens I moved onto banana peels. (Whoever said banana peels could be smoked must’ve been smoking something, but it couldn’t have been banana peels, because they tasted terrible, smoked poorly, and produced no high.)

I’ve smoked mint and spearmint, oregano and parsley, grass clippings and—finally!—cannabis, of course, when I got my hands on it. Then came crack and meth, heroin and opium. I have even grown my own tobacco and poppy and made my own madak. Hell, after I kicked opiates I learned one can smoke Oxycontin. If only I had known!

I’ve smoked lavender and sage, damiana and DMT, and just about every kind of tobacco there is, from wild rustica to sweet Virginia. I’ve even inhaled the fumes of gasoline, glue, and freon, though I’m not sure that qualifies as smoking, seeing as you don’t set flame to those substances. Can you imagine?

The point of all that is to say that my palate should be somewhat developed when it comes to smoke, considering all I’ve exposed it to. And I can confidently say that red osier dogwood tastes fucking great!

Most of what I’ve smoked has never compared to tobacco, at least in terms of flavor. Certainly there are more intoxicating substances, but tobacco is unique in the world of smokables. It tastes good and you can smoke almost incessantly without impairing your ability to drive. And you can smoke it for roughly 40 years before it kills you, and that’s if you inhale. If you just occasionally puff, like I do, you may extend your life.

I assumed red osier is harmless—which I’ll get to later—so I was eager to load a bowl.

“Do you mind if I have some?” I asked Dave.

He handed me a small baggie of the dried bark. I took a pinch and mixed it with my blend of Virginian, Mediterranean, and latakia tobaccos. For the next thirty minutes my friends and I sat isolated together in the quietude of a fresh snowfall and talked and smoked and reflected.

The next morning I set out in search of red osier dogwood.

What Is Red Osier Dogwood?

Red osier dogwood is not a willow, despite it often being called red willow. It is a dogwood, specifically known as Cornus sericea.

I am no botanist, but I feel confident that if you buy or harvest bark from the red willow, which is Salix laevigata, you will not be smoking the kinnikinnick known as red willow bark. So, if you plan to buy the stuff online, be sure to search for and purchase red osier dogwood, not red willow bark.

If you plan to harvest it yourself, read on.

How to Find Red Osier Dogwood

Red osier dogwood grows across North America, excluding the southern states of USA. It is a riparian plant, meaning you can find it along rivers, canals, and waterways. I live in Utah and notice it on almost every hike or bike ride along a river or creek. It doesn’t grow in the water, but near it, often on the upper banks.

Identifying Red Osier Dogwood

Red osier dogwood is easily identifiable by its bright red bark. It is the color of a Red Delicious apple. It’s a rather spindly shrub, with long straight branches up to 3/4” diameter at their base, and reaches heights of about 8–10’. These characteristics are what you should look for when spotting from a distance.

Upon closer inspection, you’ll want to check the bark and the buds. The bark has small white pores on it, and the buds form on the stalk opposite to each other. If the buds form at 90 degrees from each other, or appear in alternating sequence along the stalk, it’s not red osier.

Also, the pith is white. When you cut a branch, you should be able to clearly see the red outer bark, the light green inner bark, and a solid white pith.

How and When to Harvest Red Osier Dogwood

To harvest red osier dogwood just prune or slice off a few branches. I have used my pocket knife, and I’ve used snippers. Snippers make quick and easy work.

Though I can’t verify the truth of this claim—and it appears neither can anyone who has written of the subject—the best time to harvest for smoking is in the winter. Apparently there’s a substance that runs through the veins of the plant that produces a bitter taste. BUT this chemical lies dormant in the roots in the winter months. A wintertime harvest results in a sweeter smoke.

I harvested in December.

How to Strip the Bark from Red Osier Dogwood

The desirable part of the red osier is the inner bark, which is somewhat pulpy and light green. The outer bark—the red stuff—is about 1mm thick. The second layer of bark—the light green stuff—is about twice that.

You’ll need a sharp knife or box cutter blade. Strip away the red, then peel off the green. Beneath the green is a layer of bark that is white and hard. If you cut into it, you’ve cut too deeply. The idea is to cut to it, but not beyond.

Have you ever looked closely at the rind of a Red Delicious apple? Peeling red osier is a lot like peeling a Red Delicious. It even smells like apple!

How to Dry and Cure Red Osier Dogwood Bark

If you’re careful as you strip the bark, you can leave each shred attached to the stalk. This makes it easy to set each branch aside for drying, or, better yet, over a campfire for a smoke-cured kinnikinnick.

I dried the remaining shreds in an old cigar box, setting them and the shredded branches in a sunny window. The shavings were sufficiently dry to smoke in about three days.

How to Smoke Red Osier Dogwood Bark

Put it in your pipe and smoke it!

Effects of Smoking Red Osier Dogwood Bark

H.D. Harrington, a professor of botany and edible plant expert, wrote that red osier “is said to be aromatic and pungent, giving a narcotic effect approaching stupefaction”. He recommended its use only in moderation.

Either Harrington was smoking something other than red osier, or he was recounting hearsay. “Stupefaction” is quite the elevated state, and I have yet to notice even a slight buzz from smoking the substance.

That said, I’ve used it only in moderation. My days of excess are behind me.

Should you use it to excess, tell us about your experience in the comment section below.

Puff, puff.