What is “Good Weed” + Favorite Summertime Strains

Ellen Lee Scanlon (00:00):

This podcast discusses cannabis and is intended for audiences 21 and over.

Nichole Graf (00:06):

At the end of the day, what good weed is for you is going to differ from what good weed is for me. I think it’s a much more personalized experience than we’ve been led to believe and I think that’s true culturally where we’ve been told that the desirable thing is this thing that everyone else is doing, and that is widely accepted as the best version of whatever. And that’s just not the case. What’s good for those High Times stoner bros who have declared that weed to be the chronic, the fire, the dopest shit around, it’s not my chronic, bro. I like something that has less of a THC effect, something that’s more mind windy, get lost in a creative process, or that’s really social and chatty is more fun to me than just checking out and going away.

Ellen Lee Scanlon (01:01):

Welcome back to How To Do The Pot, a podcast demystifying cannabis for women. I’m Ellen Scanlon. You just heard from Nichole Graf who shared how she defines good weed. Nicole is the Washington State based co-owner of the organic farm, Raven, and one of the authors of a great book called Grow Your Own. Stay tuned this summer because we have some really fun episodes about growing weed at home. When I think about good weed, I have to confess, I also picture a bunch of dudes on a couch in a smoky room. So as the host of a show trying to help women feel more confident about choosing to consume cannabis, we really want to help you and me update that image. So we have some great experts that are going to help us get to the bottom of what good weed means for women. And now that so many of us are lucky enough to head outside and start living a post-COVID life, we’re also excited to share our favorite summer strains for you to enjoy with your friends.

Ellen Lee Scanlon (02:03):

Are you on the list for How To Do The Pot’s newsletter? You can sign up dothepot.com, and please follow along on all our socials. And as always, if you like How To Do The Pot, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. It helps more people find the show. We offer a lot of advice on How To Do The Pot about how to get to the experience you want with cannabis, and I hope the tips on micro-dosing, finding your favorite strains, and understanding your body’s endo cannabinoid system help you feel more confident when you’re ready to buy. And since I’ve been thinking a lot about the more abstract concept of good weed, I asked the founders of some of our favorite cannabis companies to help us out. Imelda Walavalkar, the co-founder of California based Pure Beauty shares what good weed means to her.

Imelda Walavalkar (02:55):

It’s like the same thing as saying, what makes good wine or produce or a good dish? There’s so many components that go into it, some of which are more complex. So, for me, I think it’s the perfect storm of many things like the composition of the flower, the nose, the trichomes, the flavor when you inhale it, how smooth it feels, and then ultimately just how it makes you feel. Is it a good balanced high? Art and cannabis are really overlapping on that Venn diagram. Many people see cannabis as a vehicle for creativity, and both things I think give you a profound perspective shift that helps take you out of the present moment and makes you feel things you’ve never felt before and ultimately understand life in new ways. So that’s what all good art does, from music to film, to books, to comedy. So we want our weed to make you feel the way good art makes you feel.

Ellen Lee Scanlon (03:52):

Maggie Connors is the founder of California based Besito, which means little kiss. She shares how her relationship to good weed has changed over time.

Maggie Connors (04:02):

I was reflecting recently on how I’ve had the privilege to become more of a weed snob living in a rec market, but also certainly working in the industry. But I definitely still carry my scrappy initial relationship to weed 15 years ago when you’d find the tiniest nug in my rain jacket a year later, and it was the best thing to happen all week. And I’d call my friend and we’d go smoke it. I still do feel that precious about it, and I can certainly identify good weed as far as, if you’re measuring good on yield and bud structure and trichomes and an indoor grow where it’s maximized for all of those things, and potency too. And I love that and nothing smells better than that version of good weed. But at the same time, I love all the weed. I don’t turn any away and my old weed I make sure it gets used. So I haven’t become too much of a weed snob, actually.

Ellen Lee Scanlon (05:13):

Nichole deeply understands the role of farming practices in creating good weed, but also believes it’s more than just good plants.

Nichole Graf (05:21):

A lot of times what we used to associate with good weed is based on the bud structure, based on density, based on how resinous your buds were, based on what it smelled like when you opened the jar. But those things don’t necessarily connote the kind of experience you want. But an interesting thing is smell is a really good indicator person to person of what makes good weed, because if you open a jar of what someone tells you is their favorite weed, and you’re like, “Ooh, I do not like the smell of that at all,” that’s probably not great weed for your body chemistry. Still try it. It’s still a fun experiment to see if your experience matches up with your first smell of it.

Nichole Graf (05:57):

But by and large something we’ve found that feels very earth medicine, holistically minded is, if your body reacts strongly with attraction when you smell a joint opening a jar, that’s usually a good sign that there’s something in that substance that is jiving with your body chemistry, and you should try it and see what happens. If it makes you feel good, it’s good weed. If it is something you find yourself coming back to or missing the experience of and wanting to recreate that, that’s good weed for you.

Ellen Lee Scanlon (06:34):

I live in San Francisco, which has a famously cold and windy summer. I’ve lived here for more than a decade, but as a summer loving East Coast native, a 55 degree day in July is still tough. A tropical strain helps me get into a summer mindset and I love the strain called Acapulco Gold. It’s considered by many to be one of the best weed strains ever cultivated because of its perfect cerebral high. I buy it whenever I see it on a dispensary menu. It smells like toffee and the THC level can vary, so pay attention to that and consider micro-dosing or trying just a little to see if you like it as much as I do. Acapulco Gold is categorized as a landrace strain, which means it’s one of the original sativa strains that existed in the world. It’s from Mexico and is the base of so many of the strains we have today. We’ll cover what landrace strains are and where they come from in a future episode.

Ellen Lee Scanlon (07:36):

I love fashion, so I think of landrace strains like those tightly edited capsule wardrobes. If you buy the right things, you can turn them into a lot of different outfits. Or in the case of the plant, landrace strains are the ancestors of many, many strains on the market today. And sticking with the fashion metaphor, Acapulco Gold is like that perfect summer dress for having a great time at a party by the beach. Kendra Stocking of the cannabis brand Old Pal shares a tip about why summertime strains might be a little stronger than what you’re used to in other times of the year.

Kendra Stocking (08:12):

Generally, what you’ll find in the summer harvest, if people are doing greenhouse specifically, is that you do usually tend to have higher THC percentages, so just to be aware of that. There will be this influx in the market of higher percentage flower due to literally the sun being on the plants for longer periods of time.

Ellen Lee Scanlon (08:35):

Maggie Connors lives in L.A. where it’s always summery.

Maggie Connors (08:40):

Having grown up on the East Coast where I lived four seasons, it really punctuated time for me growing up as a kid like that. And now I’m five years in L.A., love it to death, but it’s really weird. Seasons don’t really exist for me. Certainly, I track changes. I’m very into trees and plants and flowers and animals and all that. There are changes, but it’s just not nearly the same the way that I would when I’ve lived in places that snow and have a real fall, really sync certain strains with certain occasions. It’s not really the same year here. Out here, it’s what’s good on the beach year round.

Ellen Lee Scanlon (09:24):

No matter where you live, Maggie shares what that summery feeling does to Besito’s customers.

Maggie Connors (09:30):

They love a tie, and I do think especially in summer when it is the hottest, to any fruit connected strains. We’ve had watermelons zittels. We’ve had strawberry key lime pie. I think it’s just incredible nose. It’s a fun mindset to approach the high in and thinking about other plants and fruit and flavors in particular. It’s all about mindset and intention, and so I think it just ties to that sensorial experience of eating something.

Ellen Lee Scanlon (10:10):

Imelda also sees a difference in people’s strain preferences by season.

Imelda Walavalkar (10:14):

People’s buying patterns also vary seasonally and that’s something that we try to tailor to, and I think that’s one of the great things about growing indoors, that you can grow towards whatever people are feeling seasonally. I’m a big fan of seasonal cooking and eating and I think that, that can be translated to flower as well.

Ellen Lee Scanlon (10:33):

Imelda shares one of her favorite summer strains.

Imelda Walavalkar (10:36):

We have a string called Tangimal. It’s newer and it’s sativa dominant. But what I like about it, it has a nice notes of citrus and it feels really bright. So it’s a very good summer, early fall high, and also just citrus, even just lemonade in the summer.

Ellen Lee Scanlon (10:52):

Nichole helps us get even more into the summer mindset.

Nichole Graf (10:57):

Here’s the thing, my favorite summer strains always wind up being the throwback classic ’70s strains of laying in a hammock, hot sun, tropical plants around you, great reggae and dubstep playing in the background. And Maui Waui is one that, while it is a hybrid, it definitely leans more sativa, the varietal that we have, but the effect is like laying in a hammock on a balmy day. You’re up and you’re engaged, but you’re very relaxed. Maui Waui is also the origin. We do in-house CBD-THC blends. So we physically cocktail our cannabis into curated joints so you don’t have to have this full THC experience to be able to get a feeling of the essence of these strains. So we do two blends.

Nichole Graf (11:47):

We do the Aloha blend with Maui Waui, and then the Kokomo blend, which, if you’ve Kokomo within the last year as an adult human, you know the feeling of this strain. If you haven’t, I highly recommend you just like put it on and let the Beach Boys sing you this ridiculous nonsensical, tropical, insane pop song. And that’s what I want my summer stoner experiences to be, is just always feel like there’s sun on my eyes when I close my eyelids. I want my face to hurt, I want my stomach to hurt from just laughing so hard and smiling so big.

Ellen Lee Scanlon (12:28):

Let us know your favorite summer strains, and as we get closer to fall, we’ll be sharing the best strains for that season too. Please reach out with your favorites to high@dothepod.com or DMS at Do The Pot. Thank you for listening to How To Do The Pot. For lots more information and past episodes, visit dothepot.com. Thanks to Maddy Fare, our brand manager, and our producer, Nick Patri. I’m Ellen Scanlon, and we’ll be back soon with more of How To Do The Pot.