420 All Month: Mountain Wizard

Mountain Wizard was the first strain (that I’m aware of, at least) for whom I was familiar with both of its parent strains, where all three were not famous, popular, or common already. I’ve had plenty of strains with the likes of Sour Diesel, OG Kush, Girl Scout Cookies, GG4, Wedding Cake, Grand Daddy Purple, Blueberry, Haze, Skunk, and so forth as parents, but Mountain Wizard is a hybrid of Funk Mountain (which I reviewed not long ago right here, and together me and another budtender call Mountain Wizard and Funk Mountain as a pair “the Twin Peaks” though we could also call them “the Two Towers”) and Blissful Wizard (which I’d sampled from another source not long before Mountain Wizard showed up where I work). Like a famous Istar once said, “A wizard is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to.” This is one of those strains for which I was very confident I knew what I was going to get before I smoked it (at least for the effects), and I am happy to report that it lived up to and perhaps exceeded the hype I had built up for myself.

Mountain Wizard, due to both its name and high, is really fun to talk about. If you missed all the Lord of the Rings fun from my LotR Bowl posts, they’re right here and here. I mention that only remind you all that I take my nerdiness quite seriously, like running years-long Dungeons & Dragons games, or having an answer to what my favorite color lightsaber is and the answer has nothing to do with lightsabers and everything to do with narrative devices in ring cycle mythology… or writing a cannabis blog when I already get paid to talk about cannabis at my day job.

But back to Mountain Wizard and how fun it is to talk about. Really, it’s a lot of Gandalf references and jokes. “What’s the high like?” a customer might ask, and my reply might be something like “It’s great for sitting on a grassy hilltop with an old friend and blowing impossibly elaborate smoke rings,” or “Have you ever felt the need to admonish Hobbits for stealing your fireworks?” Or they may ask “What’s its aroma like?” and I might respond “Like the clearest of mornings deep in Lothlórien,” or “Have ever imagined what the aroma of the storehouse full of pipe-weed at Isengard would have smelled like before Saruman went all evil and started breeding orcs for Mordor?”

Which, by the way, and maybe I’m forgetting a detail from the book, but if Saruman thinks Gandalf’s mind is getting slow because he smokes so much Hobbit-leaf, why does Saruman have enough to send him to prison for 25 to life just chillin’ in his house? The orcs and Uruk-hai don’t seem like stoners to me. They strike me as bath salts kinda guys, or at the very least dudes who sincerely love 30-racks. Anyway, back to the review…

The buds are really nice, with a bright camouflage/fatigues pattern of colors (not the digital camo, mind you, the other kind). There’s a variety of greens, interspersed with smaller but numerous clusters of brown pistils. The buds were very frequently odd shapes, gnarly and lumpy and really organic looking, like something Radagast the Brown might cultivate. Look at that picture I took. It looks like weed a crazy wizard grew. The flower is really frosty, soft to the touch, but comes apart nicely in the hand, leaving a dry and likely tacky residue, sticky fingers if you will.

The aroma is fantastic. (Get it, fantastic? Apologies all around for the dad joke that may be so subtle and so obvious at the same time, that it’s not even funny, it’s just literal and accurate.) I joked about comparing it to a clear morning in Lothlórien, but in actual terms it’s bright and herbal, with subtle notes of fresh earth, dry tea, spring flowers and red grapes intermingling within. The smoke is medium-bodied, but buttery and velvety, so indeed good for blowing smoke rings. The flavor is buttery and earthy, leaving a lingering patina of bitter tea on the tongue.

The high in actuality is better for the smoke rings on a grassy hill with a friend description over the admonishing of hobbits joke. It’s a heady high, good for deep ponderings of the universe or the current prestige television drama you’re watching. You want layers of intrigue? Smoke some Mountain Wizard and watch Yellowjackets. I’ve made references or jokes about conspiracy boards with the pictures of suspects, notes, questions, all connected with strings, like the popular It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia meme with Charlie and Pepe Silvia before, but this is another great high for that kind of letting your mind go and just seeing where it takes you untethered. The body high is nice too. It’s relaxing, with an almost tingly body sensation that’s not overwhelming or distracting, and the combination of head and body highs leaves me feeling a bit like a grinning or intense-faced bobblehead (depending on what I’m focusing on at the moment). The only downside is somewhat extreme dry-mouth, but that is easily remedied with a glass of water. I really like this strain; I’m not sure if it’s a top 10, but it’s certainly a top 20 all time, and could fight for a spot in the top 10 if I sat down and really had to consider ranking my all-time favorites. If you see it in the wild, get some. You won’t be disappointed.