Sub Zero, Because Baby it’s Cold Outside

It never fails: I get started early on a post, so I can be certain to get it out as early in the week as possible (preferably Mondays), and then a strain comes along that demands my attention. And this time it’s not just one strain, it’s four strains. The article I’m working on – by the way – is an overview of all this hemp-derived THC stuff we’re seeing (what feels like) all of a sudden. I think it’s one of the most important challenges facing the legal and regulated cannabis industry, not just here in Maine, but nationally. So I’ll stay on that, and post it soon. But for now, I have four strains that I need to tell you about.

So last week, like a highly anticipated album, Preposterously dropped the follow-up to 2024’s late-season smash hit Gas Face on us, with SubZero, Purple Pie, Gilbert Grape, and Pavé. If you need the refresher, or haven’t read it yet at all (in which case, please do), Preposterously is the new cannabis brand brought to us by none other than Maine’s own rap darling Spose, and expertly cultivated by the folks at Faded.

I already wrote my long piece on how I was introduced to Spose’s music, and how I experienced his rise in local fame, so I won’t rehash all that. Now I’m in a position to speak about things a bit more personally. I glossed over this in my Bread and Butter review last month, but since reviewing Gas Face, I’ve had the chance to get to know Ryan (Spose) a bit, and if it’s not too much, I’d like to say a couple nice things about him before I get to his next strain of cannabis, if I can get just a little sappy.

After posting that review, he reached out to me privately (He slid into my DM’s..? Maybe that’s not the right thing to call it… but we have talked about hanging out and smoking some time…) to thank me for the review, which alone was very kind of him. And we’ve chatted here and there since, about weed, but also dad stuff and so forth. He stopped by the store the first full day of the Gas Face launch, which was the first time I’d met him in person, and I’d just like to say that for someone who could leverage his popularity (and considering the industries he’s in) to get away with being a bit a prick, he is one of the most humble people I’ve met. When customers came to the budbar, instead of making himself the central focus, he would slip off to a merch table and casually act the part of a customer looking around. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself, but instead let me do what I do and sell his products on their merits. And he could have come back after each one and told me what he wanted me to say about his weed. He may not be my boss, but when a cultivator we work with tells us how they like to present their own products, we listen, so he wouldn’t have been out of line to do so. But he didn’t, and I appreciate so much that he trusted me with his cannabis, but let’s be honest, his bottom line too.

But most telling about the kind of person he is, he also messaged me after I posted the Northern Lights review (I’d mentioned my son’s heart transplant when he was a baby), telling me he hoped my son was doing okay, and that that must be scary. I won’t go any further into personal communications, but I wanted anyone reading to know that not only is this guy working hard to get excellent cannabis out there, but he is a genuinely decent, kind, and good human being, whom I am very happy to continue having excuses to promote a bit by way of reviewing his cannabis. And in the interest of transparency, I’m not excited about one of the strains, as it’s got some genetics that I’m not usually a fan of, so we’ll see how that goes. As I’ve said time and again that I won’t lie about something just to post about it, even if I have to take a step back and take a more objective approach.

So this week I’m writing about Sub Zero, the strain I was simultaneously most and least excited to try. Why? How? What about it puts it both at the top and bottom of my anticipation? Well, Sub Zero is a cross of Superboof and Oreoz, both of which I’ve reviewed, and both of which I’m a fan. I was excited to try it because I love these strains and I had a good idea of what it was going to be like. I was less excited because I love both of these strains… and I had a good idea of what it was going to be like. I was going to leave this one for last, at least smoking it if not reviewing it, because I could honestly talk about the strain with customers based on that knowledge, whereas the others were less certain.

But then we had these back to back (to back?) snow storms, and I thought to myself that it was too appropriate to write about something called Sub Zero. I don’t have a Spose nor Mortal Kombat joke or pun for this one (at least not a pre-planned and intentional one), but it does sound like a reference in a song or rap where he’s self-deprecating. Something like feeling less than nothing while drowning in the trappings of the rap industry, something something iced out fatality. I’m almost 20 years out from the last time I won any awards or accolades for my poetry. Ryan, if you’re reading, you can have this one if you can make something out of it.

So, on to Sub Zero. The flower is gorgeous, with big old nugs like pine trees, dark green underneath fading to almost white pate green at the edges, with a sticky, snowy blanketing of trichomes like it’s the middle of February in Maine or something. The orange hairs are in decent-sized clusters, with the occasional tendril creeping out and away from the body. As with Gas Face, it seems like each jar (I’ve opened a couple, and looked in the bottoms of several) is purposefully packed to have at least one showstopper nug, a real Instagram-worthy bud. It’s an attention to detail that I find flattering as a consumer.

The aroma is wonderful. There are fruity and herbal notes under a soft but primarily floral tone to the whole thing, but lingering in the nostrils, almost more a nose-feel than an aroma, is a light menthol effervescence, giving the entire experience the feeling of a completely non-medicinal, flowery icy-hot. It leaves my nose lightly tingling, and my mouth slightly salivating for the smoke.

Speaking of which, the smoke itself is clean and smooth, and this was smoking in a regular glass bowl, not my normal bubbler which I’ve become so accustomed to. Even without water filtration, it offered easy hits. And the flavor! So, given the relation to Blockberry (a phenotype or alternate name for Superboof), I shouldn’t have been as surprised at the berry flavors that came forward in the smoke. While there was a pungence that ran through it rather than the normal bitter from the smoke itself, the smoke was most reminiscent of a cherry-cheese danish and a cup of black coffee. There was a fruity sweetness accompanied by a creamy and sweet cheesy quality, all of which sat on a subtle foundation of rich coffee earthiness, which I assume is the Oreoz coming through.

The high was fantastic. I had the opportunity to share this with my brother as we got together just to chill for a bit before the storm came on Saturday afternoon, and while I am prone to being a chatty goofball with him, this high took that off the charts. We laughed our faces off, and I found myself struggling for a bit to shut up at all. My proclivity for over-sharing or allowing a narrative to run on and on and on and on got the best of me for a while, enough so that I went back to my notes to write that down specifically. Perhaps because I was up and about and not in my own home, but the body high seemed minimal, though pleasant. While I felt just a bit hungry and thirsty, it was nothing out of control at all. And overall I felt a calm energy, like my body was in just enough of a relaxed state that I could easily transition from sitting to standing to moving around, to standing around, and my knees complained far less than they normally would have.

I used the Spinal Tap “These go to 11” bit last week, and I don’t want to overuse that reference, not only for the sake of variety, but also because I don’t want to cheapen the meaning behind saying that something is so superlative that it goes off the charts, but I did think of that first for my wrap-up line. Suffice it to say, this is a great cultivation of a fantastic strain. I really enjoyed the aroma, flavor, and high of this one, with no complaints. I didn’t have to qualify anything with “this may sound bad, but trust me it isn’t” or “I wish it had just had blah or didn’t have other blah.” For a social daytime or earlier evening high, this should be a top choice. It is for me. Enjoy!