Category: The Bite

Banana Macaroon by High Noon Cult

~ johnbrandall ~ 1 Comment

We are somewhere near the border of New Mexico and Arizona, headed to Tucson. I'm about to smoke some Banana Macaroon, grown by High Noon Cult. I bought a gram of it in Ruidoso, New Mexico, at the R Greenleaf dispensary there. Did that shop go all deli-style? I used to prefer deli-style, a.k.a. bulk. But deli means no package dates, no provenance. Maybe it's better that way, no fussing over dates. What you get is what you get.

I bought single grams of seven different kinds of cannabis in Ruidoso. Made my own sampler pack. Of the seven strains I purchased, this Banana Macaroon was the most visually distinctive. Lots of red hairs. Crystals on mint-green trichomes. Thin, tall, even skinny buds. This gram weighed out to 1.06 grams. It has a pleasant, fruity scent. It's spongy. Soft. Unusual-looking bud.

I am breaking off a little morsel from the skinny totem-shaped bud. We are now in Arizona.

The Banana Macaroon hit well. I used the $6 glass one-ee I (also) bought in Arizona. I have my own glass back home but I don't mess around driving through Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas to get from the St. Louis area to Tucson. I didn't find the Banana Mac to be especially flavorful but I did taste some cream and some fuel.

It's been a while since I have smoked in a car. I should say, I am riding shotgun. I am not driving. I don't drive and smoke. Not since 2011 when I made a bone-headed nearly disastrous driving decision after just having puffed a one-ee from a dugout. It was about four years ago that I fired up a Grape Kush pre-roll from the Pecos Valley Productions in Roswell right along this stretch of road, Arizona along I-10 headed west just over the New Mexico border. My wife has the wheel the rest of the way to Tucson, so I'm blazing. We'll be in Tucson in two and a half hours.

I'm feeling the fuel. There's an energy in my legs. The rush, the bite. San Simon River, dry. Mountains all around. Ranchland, scrub land, desert, speed limit 75. There are snow-capped peaks on some of these mountains, which is not usually the case. The sky is clear but the air is hazy. Two hours to Tucson, 13 miles out of Bowie. Telephone poles, electric lines. Remorse, regret, second thoughts. This is that bite. The weed goes in and starts pulling skeletons out of your closet, if you have them. But it's part of the process, it's part of the high. It can be therapeutic. This is the hard part, you just gotta get through it...


Click here for the full review of Banana Macaroon by High Noon Cult...

Donny Burger by Crops: a strain review

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

GMO lemon sponge cake flavor, how I've missed you.

There was a tamper-proof seal on the container but no inner seal. The package date is 2.6.2024. Which means it has been in this jar for almost a year. And yet. And yet. This is the tastiest smoke of recent memory. The tastiest since Proper's Black Maple. But let me back up.

This is a strain review of Donny Burger as grown and sold by Crops in Illinois. I bought this eighth of Donny Burger last March from the Beyond/Hello in Sauget, IL. Goose Lake. I had enjoyed GMO previously but didn't have any in inventory.

Donny Burger's lineage is GMO x Han Solo Burger. GMO is Chem D crossed with Girl Scout Cookies. Source: Seedfinder (click here). Han Solo Burger is GMO crossed with Larry OG. Larry OG is a cut of OG Kush crossed with SFV OG. So there is a lot of GMO, a lot of OG Kush in Donny Burger.

I had heard of the Donny Burger strain, I'd seen it around. I was curious about the name. Donny Burger, it's one of those strains that any time I see it written I have to say it out loud, in a New England or New York accent. Donny Burg-uhh! Drop the "r" sound at the end, and shout it a little.

What's up with the name, Donny Burger? And Han Solo Burger, what's that about? Turns out the breeder, Skunk House Genetics, was making a reference to an Adam Sandler film that I have not seen, probably will never see. It's called "That's My Boy," co-starring Adam Sandberg. Apparently, the lead characters are Sandler (Donny Berger) and his estranged son named Todd Berger, who must have a nickname along the lines of Han Solo Berger? It doesn't really matter but I was curious. Now, onto the review of this Donny Burger by Crops...


The full Donny Burger review is here...

Gelonade by Rythm

~ johnbrandall ~ 1 Comment

The Gelonade is a tasty one. It's a funky orange-rubber taste. Similar to other strains with similar lineage like Lemon Bean or Biskante. And quite similar in taste to Rythm's L'Orange, although the genetics aren't as much a match. I say it's like if a pencil had an orange-flavored eraser, that's what this smoke tastes like. It's not a sharp citrus tange. It's a rounder, softer orange flavor, with that funky rubber element mixed in. And there's some menthol or numbing effect on the tongue.

I'm high now. It's a pretty fast-acting high. Maybe that's what we mean when we are talking about sativa effects. The come on is quick, in your face, up in your mind. The bite. It could be from the Gelato branch of the genetic tree, which draws on both Durban Poison, the South African landrace sativa, and the Burmese landrace sativa. I guess that's why I was always surprised Gelato would be listed as an indica-leaning hybrid.

Anyway, Gelonade is a cross of Gelato and Lemon Tree. Lemon Tree is a cross of Sour Diesel and Lemon Skunk, both considered sativas in their own right. But, for me, Sour Diesel never has had an energizing effect and Lemon Skunk has been an uplifting but never a racy sativa smoke.

I wonder, though, where the orange rubber flavor comes from. Not Sour Diesel. Not Gelato. Maybe from the Lemon Skunk part of the lineage. Or maybe the flavor is sui generis, arising only when Gelato and Lemon Tree are crossed.

Prepare for the head rush with Gelonade, is the long and short of it. Outside, it's snowing like hell. I have been shoveling on and off for hours but it keeps falling. I'll go back out again later. I am stunned and knocked back a bit by all of this snow. I'm sore from shoveling and while the weed never makes me feel worse it does do a heck of a good job of pointing out to me the strains I have lurking in my musculature. And I mind those yellow flags because pushing through a strain is never a good idea. Even stretching through a small strain I discover while high has gotten me in trouble. It feels good at the time to stretch, especially because I'm under the influence. But it always seems to make me feel worse the next day...


Read the full strain review here...

‘Scotch Bacio by Abundant Organics

~ johnbrandall ~ 2 Comments

This time earlier in the day after not so much alcohol. As a one-ee, as opposed to a joint. Effects are strong and clear, clear and potent. It's a smooth smoke. I picked up this "super eighth" grown by Abundant Organics earlier this year in Tucson, Arizona. I'd been sitting on it for a few months. Fear not, the jar was competently sealed. The bud was cured. And they didn't short me. 4.72 grams in the jar. Seriously, the Abundant Organics BOGO at Trulieve has to be one of the best deals for legal weed anywhere in the country. Y'all in Arizona have got yourselves a good weed scene.

I had AO's 'Scotch Bacio (short for Butterscotch Bacio) for the first time late in 2022, as a gram I bought at Prime Leaf. I wasn't into the dessert strains or Gelato crosses back then but I was trying just about anything Prime Leaf had on its menu (which was still a great menu back in 2022, but that's a discussion for another day).

Then I picked up an eighth of Butterscotch Bacio early in 2024 from a dispensary in New Mexico. That was the High Noon Cult Butterscotch Bacio, and it was fantastic. I have a strain review of that jar that you can find here.

I cracked the AO 'Scotch Bacio about a week ago. The first time I smoked it was while I was drinking, later in the day, as a joint (.35 grams), after some friends stopped over somewhat unexpectedly (but they were welcome), and it all might have been too much. I got stoned and retreated into myself for twenty minutes or so. Then I was able to unwrap myself and be present in the festivities.

Today I smoked some of the 'Scotch Bacio through a one-hitter and it is giving me a lift. It does have a bite. The experience begins as a drilling down. This is how it begins but not how it ends. You gotta get through the bite. Embrace the bite. The smoke comes in and it takes a look around. It turns over stones. It pulls your skeletons out of the closet. It has me questioning myself, feeling not good enough. Which can be unpleasant. And would be really unpleasant if it were not temporary. I try to accept the introspection, I try to learn something from it...

Find the full strain review of 'Scotch Bacio here...

White Widow by UpNorth

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

...Then an hour or two passes while I smoke and experience the White Widow's effects...

It's been a little while now since I smoked most of a third-of-a-gram joint. The taste was sharp, not unpleasant. Acerbic. The head rush is notable. It's a pretty strong immediate effect to the head. The White Widow is racy to start out, so beware, fellow smokers.

It makes me wonder if the term "racy" actually does derive somehow from these landrace strains. I can think of other landrace strains that I would also describe as imparting racy effects on the smoker. Durban Poison is often a racy smoke. Although I have never smoked the Burmese sativa landrace as a standalone strain, I believe more and more that it's the Burmese sativa lineage in Sunset Sherbet/Gelato strains that gives me an unmistakable bite when I smoke Sherbs strains.

After the strong inquisitous head rush, the experience transitioned smoothly into a functional, task-oriented high. What did I need to do? Put food out for the birds, seed and suet. Clean the floors. I grabbed a bucket and a mop, ran some hot water, added some wood soap. Mopped. I was still feeling introspective. I was going back in my head to yesteryear. I would describe this effect as memory-racing. I was wandering around in my head.


Read the full post about White Widow by UpNorth here...

Butterscotch Bacio by High Noon Cult

~ johnbrandall ~ 2 Comments

This is a review of the cannabis strain called Butterscotch Bacio, as grown by High Noon Cult and sold at the R Greenleaf dispensary in Ruidoso, NM in early June 2024 (right before the fires)...

That was a strong writing riff this last hour. Pulling notes from memory. Like I used to do.

That Bacio can't be bad. It had a sweet creaminess that developed into a lemony citrus exhale. Piney. Maybe piney even more so than lemony. Piney citrus after a slightly doughy sweet cream.

It burned well out of that glass one-ee I bought at the same shop for $5. Sure, I have glass pieces. But I was en route to Tucson from St. Louis. I am careful about what I drive through Kansas with.

Tragedy befell the towns of Ruidoso and Ruidoso Downs a couple of days after we left there, having spent just one night, at the Best Western Pine Springs in Ruidoso Downs. It's a cool, old hotel. It's not fancy but it's in a great spot and the price is right...

Check out the full review here...

Rollins by Cresco

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

I've been returning to sativas lately, approaching them in the daytime and asking them to help me in my writing process. I don't expect or attempt to write new material when I'm high. Rather, I am expecting that the cannabis effects will help me in my editing process. The high version of my mind is like having another person read what I've written, another pair of eyes as it were.

This sativa, Rollins from Cresco, seems to have delivered on that score. Going through an old notebook, I've resurrected a few old poems, making tweaks, adding the finished result back to my submittable roster. By now I've had so many poems rejected, some of them dozens of times, that I have no reason to refrain from submitting any single poem.

The bite on the Rollins wasn't bad. And I'm saying that as I pen this from the table in my parents' dining room, with them here. Which is all to say: if grass was going to get me paranoid, this would've been the time for that to happen. My dad doesn't think much of me smoking. I posted an installment of my Weed Chronicles to another one of my blogs, which he read, asking me, "Do you have to do that every day?"


The full review of Cresco's Rollins strain is available here...

Me-So-Hi

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

This has been a good smoke. It's Me-So-Hi, by Keyway. Terrible name for a strain. It had been on the shelf for a while, according to the package date. I got it from Pecos Valley Productions in Ruidoso, New Mexico. The people working there were really nice, in good moods—jocular.

The Me-So-Hi didn't taste like much. It's supposed to be a cross between Red Headed Stranger and Durban Poison. It's a sativa. Red Headed Stranger is indeed named in homage to the 1975 album by Willie Nelson.

This flower is old and it doesn't taste like much but here I am once again with pen in hand and paper underneath. I am remembering again how this used to go. In my mind I travel back two decades, to the years right before law school, which weren't any of my most productive years but I was keeping journals then, I was writing. And I made it out of those years with what would become my marriage still intact...


The full post is here...

Trap Island, No Bite

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

To clarify what I mean by "the bite."

It's true of marijuana, and probably true of a lot of drugs. Mushrooms come to mind. Even alcohol. You start to feel the effects of the drug but then your mind starts skimming off the worries and angst bubbling up there at the surface of your consciousness. If you've made a mistake, done something stupid, or just had something lousy happen in your life, the high will sometimes make its first stop in this territory, on these front-and-center topics. Even if you didn't think you really wanted to think about them. After all, isn't that the point of the drug, to escape, to avoid, to detach, for a little while?

My experience with marijuana is that I often encounter this "bite" phase of the high first. Sometimes it isn't negative at all but yields a "head rush" replete with wacky ideas, the highs and "high-deas" of my younger days. Pure wild-minded bliss. But if there's something I've been kicking myself over, or some nonsense I cannot get out of my head, the high will make me encounter this reality. It's the opposite of escapism. It can be therapeutic, facing what worries me. Or it can send me spinning down the bitten wormhole—if I fight it, if I allow myself to dwell there. I let the bite take its hold for a few minutes then I tell myself I smoked up to relax and enjoy myself, not to wallow...


This is just a portion of the full post, which you can reading by clicking this link...