How's it growing folks, it's me, your friendly Tucson Marijuana Guide, Eddie Celaya! Happy Here Weed Go! holidays to you and yours!
I'm in a giving holiday mood this week, and I figured it would be in the Christmas spirit to offer up my list of what cannabis products, brands, items, innovations and events I enjoyed the most this year.
There's no real rhyme, reason, order or ranking to this list, its just a collection of about a dozen things I think are worth shouting out and mentioning or that absolutely blew my mind.
Don't think of this as a set of reviews, but rather a collection of great memories and experiences tied to some very cool, cannabis and cannabis-related "favorite things."
Each entry in this list is linked to a website or social media page where you can learn more and see if in 2023, you'll be adding any of these to your "best of" list.
Note: I tried or experiencedΒ all of these products and/or events off the clock. Just want to get that disclaimer in their for my boss, Jill. Hey Jill, Merry Christmas!
Cannafriends
If you haven't been to one of these monthly gatherings (one in Phoenix, one in Tucson) you need to get with it.
Hosted at the The Anabelle Studio during the Tucson shows, Cannafriends is a four hour-long bash celebrating adult-use cannabis in pretty much any and all forms.
Vendors from brands and companies, both local and national, offer up their medicated and non-medicated wares in one room, with inventive d'oeurves and a cannabis syrup-infused punch being passed around to set the mood.
Then, there's the smoking room.
Tables of vendors offer varying devices and methods to consume dabs (of butter, batter, shatter and glass) or pass around pre-rolled joints and disposable vape pens to induce a kind of collective euphoria, all to the thumping sounds of pop and house music.
I've talked with friends and relatives from other recreationally legal states and they've said they wish there was something like a Cannafriends event in their towns.
Do yourself a favor and follow them on InstagramΒ or Facebook so you'll know when next year's first event is in January. You'll thank me for it later.
22Red
I love covering cannabis and being exposed to all of the new ways to consume it. From all the new forms of extracts, to fast acting gummies, to distillates that taste like watermelon bubble gum.Β
But at the end of the day (usually literally) I want to close things out with a nice bowl of freshly ground up, high-grade, stinky-smelly cannabis flower.
And probably the best, and definitely the prettiest, strain of cannabis I ran across this year was White Truffle from 22Red.
While I don't have the exact strain pictured here (that's Red Apple you see up at the top), it was an eighth of pillowy, sticky, deep purplish-blue nugs with the frostiest tri-chrome encrusted leaf tips I've ever seen.
The smell was similar to the taste of a California IPA, and it smoked to almost a piney finish on the tongue, especially in the exhale.Β
I was introduced to 22Red after a trip to Earth's Healing North in October, but the brand is newer to Arizona, hitting the market during the summer earlier this year.
If you're looking for where to find some of it's flower or other products (they have some mean pre-rolls too), visit their website.
Nesa's Hemp
In late October this year I was hit with some sort of bad juju. I never tested positive for COVID, and I was never in a real bad way, but for about three or four days I could do no more than get into and out of the shower.
Because of the cough and my general lack of energy, that ruled out consuming any sort of flower or vapeable products. And due to my dizziness, I didn't think any sort of THC-laden edible was a good idea, either.
So I stumbled into my bathroom cabinet and pulled out a tincture of CBD oil from Nesa's Hemp and ended up using a little more than a teaspoons worth of the oil the next few evenings.Β
While I won't credit it with curing me or anything miraculous, it did offer me a way to relieve the anxiety that comes along with missing The Bill Buckmaster show I was supposed to appear on after getting sick for the first time in three years.
If you want to learn more about Nesa's Hemp, which comes in CBD and CBDa verities, check out her website and Instagram.
Select Dabcap
Like I said earlier in this piece, I'm still a cannabis flower guy at heart. But sometimes, if I'm really looking to get stoned after a tough day of covering people getting stoned, I need something with a little more potency.
That's when I turn to my vape pens. They get me to that giggly place where I can enjoy an Adam Sandler movie without being too cynical and without passing out from being too blitzed, like I would from a dab-rig hit of shatter.
But sometimes, even though I appreciate the additional flavor of vaping, I want that clean taste that comes from smoking through water.
That's where devices like Select's Dabcap come in. It allows me to insert my pen into one end, stick it onto the bowl of a bong or another water-based pipe, and take a good ole rip.
I'm not at all sure of the science that happens to distillate vapor when it goes through water, but it tastes healthier for my lungs.
Harambe CafΓ©
With the closing of Arte Bella on 4th Ave., there aren't a lot of consumption lounges left here in the Old Pueblo.
Luckily, Harambe CafΓ© is here, and it slaps like a lost Three Stooges episode. There's almost always something going on, from the twice-monthly vendor fairs Muchies Monday's and Wild Wednesday's, to weekly concerts and Taco Tuesday's.
Plus Cannafriends hosts it's monthly CannaDrag series there.
And that's just the events. Harambe CafΓ© is one of the very few places in town you can go to just chill out, sip on some coffee and spark up (or not, you can bring your dab rig or vape pen and be non-combustible with your consumption).
Plus, there's usually a great food option, like Mafia Kitchen or 420 Taco, just looking to feed the needy (read: high and stoned). Make your way down for an event or just to check it out after stopping by the dispo (Harambe basically shares a building with Green Med) and let me know what you think.
GrΓΆn 100mg THC Mega Pearl Gummies
I travel and visit new cannabis markets at least once every six weeks, so I expose myself to different products from different markets and regions regularly.
About a year and a half ago, IΒ visited Portland and grabbed some regular GrΓΆn edibles and was impressed by their taste. So when I saw a 100mg THC Mega Pearl option right before I took off to LA, I bought two of them.
Usually, edibles are divided into distinct 10mg pieces or slices. With theΒ GrΓΆn Mega Pearls, you can choose whether to break the gummy up into 10 smaller slices, or eat the whole orb at once, as I do before every trip.
I do that because it gets me into a super giggly and go-with-the-flow mood that is hard to describe and makes flying distances of two hours or less seem like 30 mins.
I often compare the experience to some of the first times I got high smoking. The giggles can come on suddenly and lead to me dying on the floor laughing at the most mundane things.
And all of this without it lasting too long. If you're on a budget and need to grab something for under $20 bucks to have a night of fun, I highly recommend a GrΓΆn 100mg THC Mega Pearl.
Psst: You can also grab the 10mg regular pearls in stores as well. Oh, and the chocolate Pips are pretty good, too.
Canna Confections Fudge and Milk Chocolate Bars
Usually, if I'm eating an edible, it's a pack of 10mg gummies from either OGeez!,Β GrΓΆn or Cannabliss (the sister-brand to Canna Confections).
But if I want to eat an edible that not only knocks me off my seat but also tastes fantastic, I turn to Canna Confections fudge or their 100mg milk chocolate bar.
It's a bit of a dirty secret in the cannabiz that chocolates can be very hard to produce, not just because they are harder to dose than gummies, but because it's harder to make chocolate with cannabis taste good.
Not a problem with these items. I sometimes will microwave a piece of these fudges until it melts, then throw some vanilla ice cream on it. And the chocolate bars would fit in just fine at a chocolatiers specialty shop.Β
This is also a local brand that's available throughout the state, so check out where you can grab these confections and improve your late night desserts.Β
Happy Friday Infused Coffee
If there was an award for avoiding coffee intake throughout a lifetime, I would have to be in the running for it. I worked at Starbucks and refused to drink the stuffΒ β to much caffeine makes me jittery. And have to poop.
However, the only product or item I tried this year that completely took me by surprise and blew my mind was Happy Friday's infused canna-coffee.Β
It tastes like a slightly-dark-chocolate hot chocolate, and if you add a little canna-butter to it and stir, there are caramel notes that come immediately to the forefront.
I tried a cup at Cannafriends back in September and ended up drinking three servings before teleporting to Fourth Avenue and eating a Lindy's Cheeseburger like it was nothing but a slider.
If it was possible, and I could keep my job, I would have the entire newsroom try this before Election Day to help take the edge off while still giving everyone that go-go peppiness than comes with coffee.
Available only as select shops in Arizona, Happy Friday also sports lines of very good milk and dark chocolate and gummies as well.
Put simply, it is the only coffee I would ever spend money on, it tastes great and it does exactly what you would want a cannabis or coffee product to do to you and it is my unofficial favorite product of 2022.
