Tag: cannabis

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...

Biskante by Alien Labs

~ johnbrandall ~ 1 Comment

This is a free-form strain review of a strain of cannabis called Biskante, offered as an eighth from Alien Labs and sold from the Tucson Trulieve at the intersection of Grant and Treat.

The Biskante has that orange rubber taste, if a pencil eraser had an orange flavoring. That's one of my favorite flavor notes when smoking cannabis. It seems to appear among certain sativas. I am thinking about Cresco's Lemon Bean and Rythm's L'Orange, for instance.

Biskante is delivering a functional high filled with rabbit holes, watch where you step. Be ready to compartmentalize. If you can do that, get ready to cash in and have an afternoon...


Read the full review here...

NF-1 by UpNorth Humboldt

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Writing now, a year and a half after that first NF-1 purchase, here's the deal

That first eighth of NF-1 cost me $68 at the Beyond/Hello on Mississipi Avenue in Sauget, IL. Considering how much prices came down when Missouri legalized recreational cannabis, I feel sheepish about paying $68 for an eighth of anything. Here's how it happened. I was out at Farm reading a copy of Riverfront Times I was about to use to start a fire. But I happened to see a cannabis column reviewing several sativa strains that had been entered into the Cannabis Cup in 2022 in Illinois. UpNorth's Durban Poison earned a glowing review.

I got really excited about buying the Durban Poison, which I did. I also bought the other UpNorth Humboldt strain on offer at that time, which was NF-1. The Durban was $50. The NF-1 was $68. Weed wasn't legal yet in Missouri. I had mostly been buying gummies in Illinois but I was starting to buy single grams here and there from Beyond/Hello. I splurged. The Durban Poison was phenomenal. It was some of the best-tasting weed I've ever smoked. The NF-1 was overshadowed by the Durban and I was bummed I had paid more for it.

But the NF-1 hung around. The Durban was tasty and potent but sometimes it was too potent. Too racy. Too head-rush, too biting. I bought another batch of the Durban months later; it wasn't nearly as tasty. Six months later, or maybe it was nine months, the NF-1 dropped to $25 an eighth in Illinois and I couldn't believe it. The Durban also sells for $25 an eighth, sometimes. I have since bought NF-1 twice more. One of the blurbs above was written on that second batch. The third batch I have in its original, sealed glass jar unopened but sealed further in glass mason jar. I'll get around to smoking it some day.


The full post is available here...

Gas Station Sushi: Dream

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It was a dream, so it didn’t add up, naturally. I’ll say. I’m high. I just smoked some of Cresco’s Gas Station Sushi. It had cedar notes, which is unusual; I can’t remember remarking on cedar notes in any other strain.

What I smoked I smoked as a cigarette. It burned fast but it smoked just alright. It didn’t hit that hard. The draw was tight. I don’t know if that’s because I put too much bud in the roll or if the grass itself was flawed in some way. If I recall correctly, this Gas Station Sushi had a package date strikingly close to its date of harvest. Maybe it wasn’t fully cured.

Whatever the case might be, it’s now an hour after I smoked that joint and I am still high. This stuff is a little trippy. I’ve never seen a clear breakdown of the lineage on Gas Station Sushi. I have read that it is a Kush Mints cross. Which is curious because Gas Station Sushi is a sativa. It’s marketed as a sativa and it is widely considered one of the best and raciest sativas sold from dispensaries in Illinois.

The full post is available here…

Rollins by Cresco

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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

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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

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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...

Strain Review: Blue Dream

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The Blue Dream ramps back up when I close my eyes.  I like that.  Oh yeah, it’s still there and it’s got room to run.  This could be an anytime strain.  Taste of coffee—I’m not sure about blueberry but maybe the taste of blueberries past the edge.  Smooth smoke, though.  

This Blue Dream was grown by Flora Farms.  In Humansville?  Possibly.  They’re based there, at least some of their flower is grown there.  I’ve passed through Humansville, MO.  A few times.  On the way to and from Tucson, AZ.  I must not’ve gone through the heart of town, just glanced the place a blow.  Thought the name was funny.  While driving back from Tucson with only Hugo the Dog along for the ride, I was keeping a journal of the drive as I drove.  When I saw the sign telling me I had entered the limits of Humansville I wrote to myself, Who names these towns?

Then a few years later, in a parking lot outside a bakery in Tucson, I was killing time looking at news on my phone and up popped an article listing all of the oddest names for towns in each one of the fifty United States.  I was hoping Humansville got the nod.  Missouri was the last state listed, and behold, Humansville got the recognition it deserves.

I’d love to stop by the Flora Farms hometown shop.  One day.  About their Blue Dream.  I’m pleasantly high, and writing.  It’s 23:16, a Saturday, April 29, 2023.  Maybe a vodka nightcap and then I’ll sleep.  

This Blue Dream was grown by Flora Farms.  In Humansville?  Possibly.  They’re based there, at least some of their flower is grown there.  I’ve passed through Humansville, MO.  A few times.  On the way to and from Tucson, AZ.  I must not’ve gone through the heart of town, just glanced the place a blow.  Thought the name was funny.  While driving back from Tucson with only Hugo the Dog along for the ride, I was keeping a journal of the drive as I drove.  When I saw the sign telling me I had entered the limits of Humansville I wrote to myself, Who names these towns? Then a few years later, in a parking lot outside a bakery in Tucson, I was killing time looking at news on my phone and up popped an article listing all of the oddest names for towns in each one of the fifty United States.  I was hoping Humansville got the nod.  Missouri was the last state listed, and behold, Humansville got the recognition it deserves. I’d love to stop by the Flora Farms hometown shop.  One day.  About their Blue Dream.  I’m pleasantly high, and writing.  It’s 23:16, a Saturday, April 29, 2023.  Maybe a vodka nightcap and then I’ll sleep...   


To read the full post, please click here...

Chemmy Jones by In the Flow

~ johnbrandall ~ 1 Comment

Returning to the farm after an 18-day absence, the writer feels creatively stifled and disheartened by rejection letters. Amidst dealing with mundane aspects of his day such as mousetraps and weather observations, he engages with strains of cannabis such as Chemmy Jones, comparing their effects and tastes. Despite seeming disoriented, he finds purpose in the presence of the sun...


To read the strain review, click here or on the image above...

Strain Review: Trainwreck

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The writer recounts their trip through parts of the U.S., noting the beautiful landscapes they have driven through and the cannabis strain, Trainwreck, they've tried from New Mexico. The strain, bought at $22 for two grams, provides a unique, enjoyable high suitable for chilling and writing, though the heritage of the strain remains uncertain...