Devil Driver by Jar Co.

As I noted toward the end of my Golden Tiger review, I really like gentle but distinct highs. I’m not in this to get wrecked (most of the time). I’m not rolling blunts or ripping 2 grams at a time from a coffee-table-monopolizing bong. I generally microdose here and there throughout the day when and where appropriate, I smoke socially when appropriate, and I have a couple bowls (or dab  hits) in the evening to relax most nights. But, for the sake of personal variety, for the sake of variety here on the blog, and due to availability of new strains at work for which I want to have first hand experience in order to talk about with my customers, I’ve been hitting some much heavier strains the last week or two. The first I’d like to share with you is Devil Driver by Jar Co.

First impressions for me, when it comes to new flower, is either the look or the aroma, and it’s usually the aroma. I’m sure I’ve written this before, but I love opening a new jar or bag (or tin, or whatever), and before anything else, closing my eyes and taking a deep inhalation of the freshest and most potent aroma. Except that one strain that smells like diapers. Dirty diapers. But that was not this strain.

No, Devil Driver was most pleasant, sharp and citrusy, bright, and with the most minor (and I mean MINOR) trace of skunkiness behind it. I took note of the intense lightness of the skunk specifically because the forward aroma is so sweet and tangy that it’s easy to get lost in it. Everyone with whom I’ve shared the smell jar has had a big reaction, and most of them have been exactly the same. Which leads me to an aside.

I love watching people smell cannabis samples. There are, as far as I’ve seen, two major approaches that nearly everyone falls into.

One is the intense and fast approach. Some people (customers, coworkers, and friends alike) basically try to stuff their nose as far into the jar as allowable (which is why I try to hold onto the jars with customers at least), take a huge, fast, nostril-flaring gush. Sometimes they stay for a second. They hold their nose there for a moment, and then rise suddenly.

The other is the slow and deliberate method. Usually eyes close, the nose hovers just at the mouth of the jar, and if nostrils flare it’s done slowly. I can see the inflation of the lungs carry from the belly through the ribcage and frequently to the shoulders, like someone shifting from a musician’s controlled diaphragm breathing to that of the whole body breathing you see at the end of meditation sessions. There is an intense joy in this method that I don’t see visually in the other, fast approach.

With Devil Driver, the reaction is the same regardless of approach. Eyes kind of snap open almost in surprise, but so far only happily, as a smile or grin gently cracks the corners of the mouth. This is usually followed by an appropriate verbalization of being impressed. A Keanu-esque “Woah,” or a Takei-like “Oh my…” -type of reaction is the norm. I’ve had a few “Holy shit”-s and “Damn”-s as well.

The look of this flower is also quite noteworthy. The photo I took for the featured image was in a lightbox, carefully balanced for maximum clarity, so that you could see the whole of the details of the flower. But in regular, casual lighting, it’s so much frostier. As you can see in that first image, Devil Driver has light-to-pale leaves, with the occasional almost black leaf snuck in there. There are abundant and thick brown pistils, and the overall structure is leafy but dense to the touch. It feels like it would be delicate, but the individual smaller buds within the larger bud snap off easily enough and become their own dense little nugs. I’m including some less-than-impressive additional pictures I took as I was writing, because I realized that I wanted to show the frostiness of the thick and heavy trichomes, but any shots in the lightbox were just too bright. And even still, these other images are not nearly as opaque white as it appears to the naked eye. This flower’s trichomes are impressive.

Another nice thing about this strain is the smoke itself. It’s thick and mostly a very easy hit. There’s a very slight tickle in the back of the throat, but it doesn’t inhibit inhalation nor does it seem to provoke any extra amount of coughing. But this smoke was perfect for smoke rings. I got a smaller ring to slide right through a larger ring without disrupting either. It was pretty great.

And the high. I usually don’t reference other reviews or descriptions that have been written about these strains, but I do want to point out that Jar Co. themselves describe it in part as:

“This strain’s sativa effects can be great for uplifting your mood, letting go of negativity, or providing a boost of creativity. Aside from a calm body high, the effects tend to be mostly cerebral and euphoric making Devil Driver a great option for anyone looking for an energizing afternoon treat.” – Jar Co.

Thus far I have only smoked this strain in the evening, so I can’t as of yet comment on this with a personal take. In the evening, it has hit me as an intensely heady yet very uplifting high. I would put it in the flirty, playful, silly, or goofy category of highs. All this, and while it hasn’t made me sleepy, it hasn’t inhibited sleep either. owever this hits for you exactly, it’s likely to be a big high. There’s nothing subtle about this strain. I imagine that the energizing feeling claimed by Jar Co. would indeed be accurate if used while the sun was still up. I’m not normally a joint smoker, but I’m planning to roll some of this up and do just that sometime soon.

So, I guess that’s it for this review. No rambling narrative or life lesson. I hope you enjoyed the bit about the different ways people smell cannabis, though. Possibly the single best part of my job is seeing people immediately react to cannabis in one way or another: customers and coworkers smelling a sample, new customers seeing some of the insane display buds for the first time, and seeing the joyous gratitude on my coworkers’ faces when I hand them a trade sample (as if it was actually me giving it to them, and not that it’s just me handing them a sample provided by either the store or a grower). It’s why I write this blog, in part. I love sharing the things I love with others, and I sincerely hope you enjoy reading my meandering thoughts and opinions. And the cannabis. I hope you enjoy the cannabis too.