420 All Month: Lemon Shortbread

Some strains really surprise you. I’ll go on and on about how lemony, citrusy strains, strains with the word “lemon” in the name, cannabis with high levels of Limonene, they’re the most likely to be energizing and uplifting, going so far as to recommend for customers who are looking to avoid the highs that can lead them down the path of anxiety attacks to avoid high limonene strains for that brain-energizing reason. (I’ve found that the vast majority of customers who come in saying that they can’t smoke sativas because it gives them anxiety really can’t smoke high levels of Limonene.)

And then there’s Lemon Shortbread. Sure, it was still heady, but damn did it stone my brain into what could almost be called a stupor. I could have expected as much, as it’s listed as being Myrcene dominant, which is the most sedative and heavy of the common terpenes in cannabis, but I just assumed that for the name to contain “lemon” the secondary terpenes must include a decent amount of Limonene, at least enough to offset the normal heaviness of the Myrcene. It also shares a common parent strain with Super Lemon Haze, my number one energy and focus strain. And it’s a sativa, and while I’ll go on all day about how sativa and indica don’t mean anything for the highs, it just seemed a safe bet that this would not sink me into the couch. Oh, but it did.

I try to hold some words or phrases for very specific and intense effects. I used to hold onto “euphoric” for special occasions, but as time went on behind the budbar, and as we introduced terpenes as a dominant method for categorizing strains, which included Caryophyllene’s general description with the word “euphoric,” I let that one slide into more common usage. But one descriptive category that I’m still holding onto and have only used a couple of times is “stoned out of my face.” The phrase “I’m [blank]’ed out of my mind” (be it stoned, scared, etc.) forms the foundation of this idea, but there are a few strains that live in your face. You can’t pretend to be NOT high, you feel it in your brain so hard that it’s pushing out of your face in every way: you eyes look stoned no matter how wide you try to open them, your mouth is either grinning or otherwise held firm in a certain shape, you look simultaneously surprised and completely unaware of everything around you. Stoned out of my face.

The buds should have also been a red flag for those effects. The flower is such dark purple that it’s almost black, with a pale green fuzz beneath the thick cover of trichomes that frame the edges. The pistils are a really dark, almost rusty brown. They’re pretty dry and firm to the touch. The aroma is pretty gentle, actually, highlighted by a lemony tone more like the outside of a ripe lemon than the tart sweetness of the juice or zest. Framing that is a balance of light pungence, with notes of butter, herbs, and honey.

The smoke was also surprisingly delicate, transferring the buttery aroma to the texture, keeping it smooth but light, with just a bit of spiciness in the throat-feel. The flavor of the smoke betrays that aforementioned common parent strain with Super Lemon Haze, Lemon Skunk. A light but consistent skunkiness runs through the core of lemon and gas. I opened with the highs, but to fill in some gaps, it’s still a pretty good mood-elevating high, with a touch of the giggles poking through the fuzzy-headed stoniness. The body high feels very secondary to the head high, but is relaxing, if a bit dehydrating.

All in all, not an every day kind of high for me, but one that I’m glad I know is there, and given that Lemon Skunk is in a couple of other strains I might have kicking around, I want to go back and re-explore those others as well. I’m not always looking to get super stoned, but I sometimes forget how nice getting old school wrecked in the face can be when it is the right high.