Tag: Strain Review

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!

Novarine by Grassroots

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I'm stoned. The Novarine is not at all tasty but this is a for-real high.

Let me back up. Grassroots is one of the first growers offering recreational marijuana in Illinois. I remember getting little one-gram containers from them. Northern Lights Haze?

It doesn't matter. I believe Grassroots is also the company that makes the Wana brand of gummies, which have been consistently good over the years, and across the country. I've seen Wanas on the menu in Illinois, Missouri, New Mexico, and Arizona.

Grassroots as a grower selling flower seemed to fade in Illinois in 2022, 2023. They just never had many offerings on the menus I was looking at (Sauget, Fairview Heights). But when I was looking for a sativa-leaning eighth to give as a gift to a friend in early 2024, I was drawn to Novarine from Grassroots. I wanted to make sure I was giving a decent gift so I bought two eighths of Novarine. I'm not sure the logic ever added up. If I cracked an eighth and it was bad, then what? I have two lousy eighths? If I cracked one and it was good, I guess I would also have an eighth for myself. That was my thinking.

I bought the two Novarine eighths from Ascend in Fairview Heights, IL in December of 2023. The eighths were plastic jars, and they weren't especially fresh. The purchase was immediately on shaky ground. I opened one jar, which had a moisture pack in it. The bud was pretty dry. It didn't have any bag appeal. I was not going to be giving Novarine as a gift but I would still try it out for myself...


Read the full strain review here...

White Widow by UpNorth

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...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...

London Pound Mints by High Supply

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Flavorful. Lots of different, fleeting, rotating flavor notes. Some fruit, vanilla, something floral, earth, chem, then black licorice at the end.

My wife returns. House talk. Leaves got picked up from the curb, the easement language is in the deed on the place we are trying to buy. Part of that driveway is on the neighbor's property but at least one prior deed mentions the existence of an easement. Fifty feet wide, for ingress and egress.

The chem-y, earthy flavor of the London Pound Mints lingers. Maybe that's just tar. The licorice flavor at the end of the joint was memorable, unique. Then the flavor parade before it. I've been trying a couple new strains a week, and this has been the most flavorful in awhile. It's 9:30 a.m. This is earlier in the day than I usually smoke. This strain is supposed to be an indica but I don't feel sleepy or stoned, yet.

This flower was grown by Cresco Labs. Then marketed under their High Supply label, which is a discount brand. I bought it at a Beyond/Hello in Sauget, Illinois. I have picked up a few High Supply canisters over the last year. Slurricrasher was the most recent. Before that, I bought a quarter of Kush Mints under the High Supply label. The Kush Mints was not memorable. It was fine. The High Supply Slurricrasher was good, not great. Not as good as the Slurricrasher I bought under the Cresco label. This London Pound Mints seems to be my favorite so far out of three High Supply buys...


For the full review click here. Never any ads. My own independent site. Forever in search of the highs of yesteryear...

Lemon Bean by Cresco

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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...

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...

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...