Tag: sativa

Florida Jack by Grow Sciences

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

There’s some carry on that Florida Jack. Early on, it was a weeper. Let it flow. I welcome and appreciate any time cannabis makes me emotional. It’s part of the process. It’s part of the high. You have to be ready for it, especially if there are things on your mind worth crying about, worth getting out. Weed can be a very direct, effective, expeditious form of therapy.

I was emotional, but in a happy, satisfied, head-on kind of way. After that, I thought the effect of smoking Florida Jack was fading.

Then the effects unfurled their second act. This is an example of why I need to give each joint enough time to do it’s thing. And why I shouldn’t drink so damned much, ever—but especially when I’m trying to size up a new strain.

I suddenly found myself with nowhere I had to be. No company coming over. Nothing on the to-do list. Time was passing but I had a notebook and a pen and I was sitting on the edge of a hand-me-down twin bed in the back bedroom of this house my in-laws bought ten years ago in the desert. I was writing lyrics to a song no one was ever going to hear, not until now.

Eventually the Florida Jack yields a latent buzz, a pleasant buzz.

Talent neat nettle.

Mettle a molten lantern, this rental’s eternal...


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Orange Soda by Paul Bunyan

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

Orange Soda joint.

Idea for a new website: frontporchbirding.com

Took some of the laundry down. Saw the copperhead again, same spot. Then it went back under the low porch. That knocked my buzz; harshed me out a bit; not great.

I’m rallying back. I feel that Soda. It’s a great smoke, that buzz, an electricity. A body sativa; bit of a shaker.

If it were on a menu again, I’d snap it up. I’ve had a jar this year and I had a jar last year. Both were good to the last bud.

I’ve had other PTS/Paul Bunyan but the Orange Soda has been way better than anything else I’ve had from them. Papaya x Gelato wasn’t bad but Panama Mac was forgettable. Macnanna was just OK.

I bought this jar back in 2024. Held onto it for almost a year. It was still very good! I must have put a moisture pack in there to bring it back. It’s not the prettiest bud but they gave me 3.58 grams.

This was a disappearing eighth and it will also be a Strain of the Year candidate for 2025, despite it not appearing so far on the Beyond/Hello menu at any point this year. Maybe it’s up in Collinsville/Maryville/Edwardsville. Bring it back to Sauget, please...


Read the full post about this excellent sativa fuel…

Acapulco Gold from Interstate 420

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

Acapulco Gold is a classic strain. It was, I am told, a popular strain in the seventies. My wife's cousin had a little Acapulco Gold he shared with me a few years back. He said, "Led Zeppelin used to sing about this stuff."

It's a lyric in the song "Over the Hills and Far Away." The song goes,

Many times I've lied and many times I've listened
Many times I've gazed along the open road
Many times I've lied and many times I've listened
Many times I've wondered how much there is to know
Many dreams come true, and some have silver linings
I live for my dream and a pocketful of gold
Some Acapulco gold, every time

The last line, that mentions the strain specifically, is only included in the live version of the song from the album The Song Remains the Same, which was recorded at Madison Square Garden in 1973. You can hear Robert Plant putting a wry emphasis on "Acapulco Gold" when he adds the lyric before the guitar solo. Otherwise, I prefer the version of the song from Houses of the Holy.

When I bought the bag the budtender was quick to offer the caveat that what I was buying wasn't going to be like the Acapulco Gold from back in the day, his day. He said he used to get it and there were golden-orange hairs all over the bud.

The strain hails from Mexico. I'm not sure if it's considered a landrace. It's a sativa. Any time I see one of these classic strains offered on a menu, I'm going to give it a try. Maybe it's not the same thing Led Zeppelin was smoking in the seventies but it's as close as I'll get fifty years later...

Read the full post here...

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...

White 99 by C4

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

Effects (written as the session unfolded)

I run a weed hedge fund. Not really, but that's how high I am right now on the White 99. Will $10,000 buy a trial run of actually sealing these containers? Try a kickstarter, or similar, if I can give anonymously. Or maybe I am just really high on that White 99. Interesting.

I loved the White 99 from Cloud Cover. I'd buy it again. I didn't think I'd buy any more C4 with their lousy packaging but damn this bud is working on me.

I bought some Cindy 99 in New Mexico. It was dry as a bone. I've never had "straight up" The White. I don't think it exists anymore. But I look for it as an ancestor in strains. Note that The White is not in nor does it have anything do with White Widow. You'll find The White in WiFi OG, however. And it's in the lineage, albeit further up, in any strain that has Blue Power as an ancestor, e.g. Apples and Bananas.

This high takes me back to the last part of the 20th century. Those days when I first started smoking marijuana. This is the type of high I got in 1999, 2000, 2001. Before the towers fell.

But that was a long time ago. I'm high and it's cold and it's winter. The sun went away but the birds are still around. Cardinals sparrows chickadees doves one bluebird one hairy woodpecker downs one flicker nuthatches blue jays cardinals and juncos. The sparrows are white-throated and many. I heard one singing but they are not too vocal this time of year. Wait until spring...


Click here for my full strain review of C4's White 99...

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...

Top Ten Strains of the Year 2024

~ johnbrandall ~ 2 Comments

I have drawn this list of the Top Ten Strains of the year for 2024 from my own personal experience with these and other strains of cannabis flower. I am limited by residence, geography, time, space, and reason from trying all of the great strains in action from coast to coast of this U.S.A. let alone the rest of the world, all those other continents and their ancient living landraces. Without further ado, the Top Ten Strains of 2024.

Number One: Chem Reserve by Vibe (Missouri)

I never even wrote up a strain review of Chem Reserve because if I was smoking it I was always too busy enjoying the buzz, doing kooky things, saying kooky things, thinking up crazy Halloween costumes (sheet people), or running my mouth about whatever crossed my mind. Vibe classifies Chem Reserve as a sativa. It's a cross of a couple of Chemdawg strains. I was sitting on the eighth for at least half of the year before I even cracked it. It had kept well. The eighth was gone before I knew it, always a sign a strain is getting it done. This Chem Reserve woke me up to the Vibe brand, and has encouraged me to revisit Chemdawg crosses. I can't say it had a memorable taste but it had me trying to convince my wife that we should, at the last minute, dress up as "sheet people" so that we could attend a Halloween party. The idea was that we just wrap ourselves in sheets, kind of like nomads of the desert. It sounded like a good idea at the time.

Number Two: Butterscotch Bacio by High Noon Cult (New Mexico)

I did write a review of this one, so I will first refer you there. This Scotch Bacio was a win for the flower of New Mexico. I've had good grams here and there from dispensaries in the Land of Enchantment, buying flower everywhere from Clovis to Albuquerque to Ruidoso. And by now I've bought eighths from a variety of growers offering cannabis for adult use in New Mexico. This jar of Scotch Bacio from High Noon Cult has been the best of New Mexico so far for me. This strain, along with another Bacio mentioned later, has me thinking I'm into Bacio strains, meaning I am on the lookout for strains built from Sunset Sherb and/or Gelato. These types of strains might often be marked as indica or indica-leaning but it's the Burma via Pink Panties that shines through these types of crosses, dealing me first (admittedly) with a head rush that is probably best handled by an experienced smoker before settling into a euphoric, lifted, clear, inquisitive yet chill high that makes for an excellent sidekick as the late morning or early afternoon transitions to evening and night...


The full list is here. Thanks for reading. Many happy puffs to you in 2025!

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...

Lemon Bean by Cresco

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

That orange rubber taste, orange-flavored pencil eraser. It's an eighth of Lemon Bean from Cresco Labs, purchased in the area known as the Metro East, aka Illinois on the other side of the Mississippi River from St. Louis.

Frankly, I can't remember whether I bought this eighth at Ascend in Fairview Heights or from Beyond Hello in either of their lovely Sauget locations. The jar had some age on it when I opened it. I have been stockpiling, in part out of wariness and in part out of compulsion. More on that later. Let's talk about this flower.

Cresco's own site lists the lineage simply as Lemon Tree x OG Eddy. Seedfinder, my go-to site for lineage information, has one entry for Lemon Bean, from a grower called Dying Breed Seeds. Dying Breed lists a very similar lineage, except the Lemon Tree side of the lineage is identified as 365 Lemon Tree. I'm not sure what the "365" refers to.

More interesting is that Dying Breeds refers to Lemon Bean as being an indica. Cresco sells Lemon Bean in its red jars, which basically indicates the flower is sativa. On its own site Cresco identifies Lemon Bean as a sativa but does note that after a sativa onset, the effects transition toward "tingly relaxation." The line is so blurry between indica and sativa. Does anyone know anymore? Are these classifications really that useful? I digress.


The full Lemon Bean by Cresco is found 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...