Strawberry Gary, The Perfect Morning High

Regular readers, or those just discovering this blog (perhaps by way of the Best of Portland nomination for Best Blog/Website?) who’ve gone back to read past posts, know that I am prone to long-winded rambles. I mention it in most posts in fact, as it seems to be core to the structure of the whole project, and I can’t get away from it, it seems. But I want to cut to the chase on this one, for a variety of reasons.

Strawberry Gary is one of the newest drops from Preposterously, the collaborative project between Spose and Faded, and a hybrid of Gary Payton and Red Pop. This will make it four out of my last dozen reviews that have been from Preposterously, and I’ve got other strains kicking around for which I’ve got my notes ready to go, but so many of these reviews are just waiting for a spark beyond “I liked this weed” to get my creative engine turned over.

The times of day I can generally smoke flower are either 5AM or 9PM, and while I have a nice and easy note-taking system, nighttime highs are organically less likely to inspire me to get right to thinking about the review, as it’s late, and I’m old, and tired, and I’m usually chillin with my wife, watching some tv before bed. But the early morning, that’s my time, so strains that I can smoke early have that natural edge when it comes to having time to ruminate while feeling the effects. Well, Strawberry Gary has that advantage of being a great morning smoke.

But let’s start with the buds, as we usually do. As you can likely see in the picture, the buds are that green that’s not quite pale, or pine, but almost have what might be considered the palest of blue undertones, like an evergreen with just a touch of teal. Have you ever been in a different part of the country or world from where you’re used to living, and there’s just something about the light quality, the variety of foliage, such that even though the trees are of similar varieties to those you’re more accustomed to, there’s something just a little off about the color? These buds have that look, where the color looks just a little… different.

There’s a webcomic I love called XKCD, and years ago he had a joke about commenting on objects in the real world saying they looked Photoshopped. Check it out. Anyway, it’s like that. This bud feels like I ran the image through a color filter, but just a little. It’s gorgeous.

Beyond that, the buds are – similar to the other Preposterously flower I’ve had – very sticky, yet grind fairly clean. They pull apart easily enough, but the grind sticks together like extra fluffy kinetic sand. It’s really easy to handle.

As for the aroma – usually the first thing I rave about in my reviews – it’s just lovely. The first note to hit is medium-ripe strawberry, not tart like an underripe grocery store strawberry, nor the deeply rich and warm sweetness of a fresh-from-the-field strawberry, but a perfect middle of the two. On the second inhale, the bright piney and herbal undertones really shine, mixing with the fruitiness, and providing a balanced and very clean overall aroma profile.

The hits are clean and easy, with just a touch of throat tingle that I code as “spicy” currently (I’m reworking my note-taking form, and I think “spicy” is going to go away in favor of some better way of noting that quality). The flavor mutes a bit from the aroma, with the strawberry melting into a broad fruity flavor, with a slightly sour and funky edge. Lingering after the hit is a strong pine and citrus aftertaste. For a while after smoking I felt a light tingly coating of a mouthfeel that’s reminiscent of those somehow creamy-yet-chalky after dinner mints that you find at Greek diners and grandma’s houses. I say that with all due affection for both the mints and the cannabis. And Greek diners and grandmas.

I subtitled this post “The Perfect Morning High,” but of course I need to be more specific. There are energetic highs, high-focus highs, motivational highs, and so forth. One could argue that there are more or less an infinite number of ways to describe the effects of cannabis, as effects vary greatly from strain to strain. Add to that that each of us bring not only our more static and unchanging contexts to the experience, we also bring day-to-day contexts as well, changing how we feel about the effects sometimes from use to use, even from the same jar or nug.

This cultivation of Strawberry Gary, and some of this could be due to its lower THC (though I pushed it a bit and smoked more than normal both mornings I’ve had it, because I had the time and space to risk being a little higher than normal), doesn’t hit in any one particular area so hard that it risks becoming incapacitating.

Is it uplifting? Yes.

Is it energizing? Not a lot, but it certainly hasn’t slowed me down.

Was it good for focus? It wasn’t the hyper-focus of a Super Lemon Haze or the like, but I was comfortably focused, sure.

Did it get the gears in my brain turning? Absolutely, but not so fast that I felt any amount of out of control of my thoughts (at least, any more than normal).

As for the body high and more therapeutic effects, they paired well with the head high: my body felt calm and light, centered and somewhat unburdened. While it wasn’t what I would call a potent pain-reliever, the buoyancy felt nice and supported the uplifting brainy side of the high.

While Strawberry Gary may not be one of those transcendent, immediately makes the top 10 favorites kind of strain, I can happily say that I’ve smoked more of this eighth already than I have of most others I’ve acquired recently, which is saying something. I try to sample as many different offerings as possible from the dispensary where I budtend, as we have a somewhat absurdly large menu so I take it upon myself to get to know as many of the strains as I can, so even if I like something quite a bit, it frequently sits in a box with all the other eighths of which I’ve smoked about a gram, waiting for me to be in exactly the right mood and in exactly the right context to take it back out. But I’ve already done that with Strawberry Gary, and I expect I’ll actually finish the jar in the next day or two. This actually speaks volumes about the strain. I frequently end with words to the effect of “I highly recommend” or “give it a try.” Well, I do, and you should. Tell them Ryan sent you. 😉

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