best bud Archives | Page 4 of 5 | The Grand Junction Greenery

Posted on May 26, 2018 - 9:00 am

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Word abuse should be illegal. That way, if someone said “irregardless” or something else nonsensical, real-life grammar police could come along and issue a citation while the rest of us watched and shook our heads slowly. But grammar police aren’t real, and believe it or not, the word “irregardless” has been added to most unabridged dictionaries simply because it’s been said enough times to become a real word; the definition in Webster’s is “regardless.”

And the idiocy doesn’t stop there: if you look closely enough, you can find “gourmet” foods in the gas station, or “artisanal” meals in the frozen foods aisle. I mean seriously, is a TV dinner actually “artisanal” if you have to microwave it? Does the raw cardboard packaging really mean that what’s inside is somehow better than anything else you find next to the frozen waffles? No. It’s just advertising, word-doctoring, and it’s insidious, when you think about it.

True, I work in sales and advertising, so it’s possible that I’ve gerrymandered semantics a time or two, but in the end, I’ve found that honesty really is the best policy—gas station “gourmet” food will get you sick, and then just a little bit, the word “gourmet” loses some of its meaning, which is the reason word abuse should be illegal in the first place.

It’s no better in the marijuana industry. There are plenty of dispensaries that throw around the word “organic” even though their products are anything but (since marijuana is federally illegal, it isn’t regulated by the FDA, so people use the word “organic” without oversight). But the worst case of word abuse in this industry is the misuse of the term “top shelf marijuana.” It’s frustrating, so please pay attention to this: marijuana cannot be “top-shelf marijuana” just because someone put it on the top shelf. It irks me to no end because at least once a day, someone will come in and ask why our top-shelf strains are costlier than the ones downtown.

I’m always kind to these customers, because after I thought about it for a while, I realized it wasn’t their fault—they’d been lied to thanks to all the false advertising in other Durango dispensaries, and if anything, they deserve the truth (literally, I have a T shirt that says “grammar police” on the front). So, I take my time with these misguided customers, and I tell them this:

At The Greenery, our top-shelf marijuana is on the top shelf because it’s the best cannabis on earth.

My boss would get uber pissed at me if I told you exactly how we operate our grow because that’s the kind of knowledge people pay us to learn, but I can tell you that we’re straight-up scientists: our growers run around and shoot lasers at our plants to make sure the canopy temperature is perfect; we drop particulate gasses on the fanleaves of our plants to help them breathe; we use light-emitting ceramic bulbs and engineered growing mediums and all sorts of super-secret stuff, but I’ve already said too much. My point here is that our buds really are Your Best Buds because there’s no shelf in Durango that’s higher than our top shelf.

Why? The other guys use hydroponics and nasty-ass greenhouse grows just so they can pump out as much mid-range pot as they can. The other guys don’t take their time when they’re trimming or curing. The other guys take subpar pot, slap a “top shelf” label on it, and then piss me off because like I said, word abuse should be illegal. Yes, you’ll pay more for true top-shelf cannabis, but that’s how life works. Good beer costs more than the stuff with a blue ribbon on the front, good food costs more than the frozen stuff, and good marijuana costs more than the pesticide-sprayed stuff that’s sold elsewhere in this town. I’m sure that sounds harsh, but it’s true.

So come see us at our Durango dispensary on 208 Parker Avenue and talk to one of our budtenders. We’ll take our time and show you the difference between our “top shelf” and all the others. We’ll let you smell the difference between ours and theirs, and once you smoke it and taste the terpene-rich awesomeness, the term “top shelf marijuana” will start to mean something again.

May’s Best Bud of the Month

Posted on May 19, 2018 - 9:00 am

Jesse Anderson
Sales Manager, Staff Writer, Budtender, Guy Who Vacuums the Warehouse

For this particular blog, our normal blogging mastermind had to take a back seat. It’s finally his turn to be our Best Bud! He actually offered to write his own profile, but alas, we could not allow any such thing. So here we go…

About your Best Bud:

Jesse is a man of many wonders, and a few oddities, but we love him all the same. His Alaska roots show in his honest and easy demeanor, his role as a father shines in his kind and compassionate interactions with others, and his freakishly large brain acts as an in-house cannabis supercomputer spewing out fact after fact on everything and anything related to marijuana.

If you’ve had the pleasure of being helped in our Durango dispensary by Jesse, you know exactly what I mean. Or if you’ve purchased wholesale hash from Jesse, you know what I mean. Or if you’ve been lucky enough to read his weekly blogs, you know what I mean. He’s pretty damn awesome and that’s why Jesse is our (long overdue) Best Bud of the Month!

Q. When did you start working for The Greenery?
Jesse. “April 27^th, 2017.”

Q. What’s your favorite way to enjoy marijuana?
Jesse. “I’m a huge fan of fruity flower like Strawberry Banana, and I’m old, so I smoke joints. But as a father who appreciates discretion, I also love the PAX Era vape system we just started selling, and edibles are always fun.”

Q. What’s your favorite outdoor activity?
Jesse. “I try to keep up with my wife while she mountain bikes ahead of me, but I only pretend to like it, and if I’m being honest, I’d much rather be people-watching because this town is perfect for it.”

Q. Tell us about your pet.
Jesse. “We have a nine-weeks-old black Pug puppy named Yoda who spends his time looking ridiculously cute and pooping on things.”

Q. Which station do you stream while you’re working at The Greenery?
Jesse. “I always let other people pick the music while I work because I’m the type of person who listens to songs over and over again, and I got sick of my music years ago.”

Q. What do you like most about working at The Greenery?
Jesse. “I love that I can be myself while working here because I had to be someone else in my past career. And I love traveling the state while I sell The Greenery Hash Factory’s hash on the wholesale market—I never thought a career like this could exist legally, and at least once a day, I say to myself, ‘take that, guidance counselor.’”

See, guidance counselor, Jesse turned out to be more than employed, he’s an asset that we are thankful for every day. He’s also a rad dad and husband (side note, his wife is also super cool), and I think our world could use a lot more Jesses.

Visit our Durango dispensary and ask Jesse to help you out. You will learn more than you could have imagined about cannabis and you will leave feeling a little better about the world. As Jesse says, ‘How could you not be happy? We are selling legal marijuana!’.

April’s Best Bud of the Month

Posted on April 21, 2018 - 9:00 am

durango, colorado, marijuana, durango dispensary, durango dispensaries, durango marijuana, the greenery

Chris Romero
Budtender Extraordinaire

About your Best Bud:

Chris Romero is a family man. His thoughts and conversations are always about his eighteen-months-old son, Julian, and his wife, Stephanie. And they’re both delightful—Stephanie and Julian came to our last company function and did their best to smile while everyone else took tequila shots, and they became part of our Greenery family as if it were meant to be. And frankly, we love that; it’s wonderful to see young professionals like Chris jump into this industry to support a family life.

But you might not know Chris because he’s one of the newer people tending bud behind our counter (he’s the tall guy with a quick laugh and an easy smile), so this week, we thought you should meet him:

Q. When did you start working for The Greenery?
Chris. “December thirteenth of last year.”

Q. What’s your favorite way to enjoy marijuana?
Chris. “I like dabs because nothing else compares, and Live Resin is the best. It gives you a clean high with a wonderful flavor.”

Q. What’s your favorite outdoor activity?
Chris. “Playing with my son.”

Q. Tell us about your pet.
Chris. “I have five dogs, two cats, and a kid… we decided to be those type of people.”

Q. Which station do you stream while you’re working at The Greenery?
Chris. “Typically, it’s Gorillaz, but sometimes, I go for the harder stuff.”

Q. What do you like most about working at The Greenery?
Chris. “I love everything about working here. I love the weed, I love the people, and actually, I shopped here for three years before hiring on.”

See? If the Greenery has always been Chris’s choice for marijuana in Durango, he understands quality, so it was an obvious choice for him to apply, and an obvious choice for us to hire him. But just because he’s new to The Greenery doesn’t mean he’s new to this town—Chris owns the house he grew up in, and his native-born Durangoan status makes a lot of us look like newcomers, much like he might look to you if you’ve been in recently and met the “new guy.”

Either way, we’re lucky to have him. He stands behind the counter with the confidence of someone who understands cannabis, and with the purpose of someone who’s doing this all for a reason, and because of that, Chris Romero is your Best Bud of the Month for April; thank you Chris!

Lebanese Hash in Durango

Posted on April 7, 2018 - 9:00 am

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Some of the world’s best hashish comes from the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, where cannabis farmers have been dry-aging and pressing kief into bricks since long before hashish made it to America.

However, there’s a problem: hash is illegal in Lebanon, and the Lebanese government routinely bulldozes entire fields that were once sown and harvested by hash-making tribes. And even if this didn’t happen, it’s illegal to import hash into this country from overseas, so authentic Lebanese Hash is one of the scarcest concentrates on the market, and the tradition is slowly fading.

But not in Durango.

At The Greenery Hash Factory, we’ve picked up what the Lebanese farmers are being forced to put down, and now we’re making the best Lebanese Hash this side of the Mediterranean. We start with high-quality, dry-sieved kief just like the source material that comes from the Lebanese marijuana plant, which is one of the rarest strains in the world. We age the kief in a humidity-controlled environment to mimic the aging process in the original version, wherein kief was set aside in cool cellars until the pressing season came along in the winter months. And then we press the kief into large bricks via a proprietary process that darkens the kief and seals in the flavor.

The result is wonderful: it’s a mellow smoke with a fresh and complex taste; this hash is made from all the potent trichomes that house marijuana’s flavor. And Lebanese hash is different from our other products because it isn’t cooked. The simple pressing process melts the trichomes to bind the brick together, but only a minimal amount of heat is generated, so our Lebanese isn’t completely decarboxylated like other hashes such as our Moroccan, and most of the THC remains dormant in its acid form (THCa), just waiting for a flame to release its potency.

But the best part is that you can actually enjoy this hash—you don’t need a passport and a ticket to Lebanon, nor do you need a time machine that’ll take you back to the years when Lebanese Hash was easy to find. You just need to go to the best Durango dispensary, The Greenery, and ask us about our Lebanese Hash. We’re at 208 Parker Avenue, which is a lot easier to find than the Bekaa Valley, and we can’t wait for you to experience the storied tradition that comes along with every gram of our Lebanese Hash, because We’re Your Best Buds!

Weed and Romance

Posted on February 10, 2018 - 9:00 am

I have a Valentine’s Day story for you:

Nigel was a seabird who lived in New Zealand. He was a gannet, one of those streamlined white birds that looks like a seagull on steroids, and he was a hopeless romantic.

A couple decades ago, conservationists peppered a New Zealand beach with concrete decoys that looked just like Nigel, and when he flew by five years ago, he saw one that appeared particularly becoming. He landed, introduced himself to the decoy, built her a nest, and waited patiently for his stone-cold mate to lay an egg. The conservationists were ecstatic because they’d finally found success: gannets were eradicated from that beach years ago, and the concrete decoys were meant to lure in live birds; loudspeakers were even used to play gannet mating calls on loop.

But Nigel was the only bird who landed. No real birds came to live in his nest or give him an egg that might hatch. So, Nigel flew away, and the conservationists went home to wait for another season. And when it came, so did Nigel. He landed once more and made his way through the gamut of stone decoys, looking for his special lady, and when he found her, he reintroduced himself, built her a nest, and waited once more for his statuesque mate to lay an egg. She never did, so Nigel flew away again, gliding over the surf with still wings like seabirds do.

This went on for five years. Nigel would land and look, introduce and build. He’d even preen his girlfriend’s feathers, doing his best to remove the dirt that’d accumulated on his sedentary best friend. You see, gannets mate for life, staying true to just one bird forever because that’s the way it works best for them, so Nigel wooed the same concrete bird for five years fruitlessly, right up until the day he died in that lonely nest, a few weeks ago.

At this point, what I just gave you probably doesn’t feel too much like a Valentine’s Day story, but frankly, it’s genius because it works for all of us. For those of us in committed relationships, Nigel is a mascot, someone we should all try to emulate, no matter how hard it might be to love the bird we chose. And for those of us who are lonely and single on this very pink and cuddly holiday, Nigel is a reminder that it could always be worse, because at least you’re not building nests for a rock. See what I mean? And the best part is that none of this is fictional—if you don’t believe me, you can watch Nigel’s struggle here.

And do you know what else works for all of us? Marijuana. For real. It makes bad dates better and good dates the best. It makes loneliness more bearable and partnership more companionable. And it makes the best Valentine’s Day gift ever, regardless of which side of the spectrum you’re on, because flowers and cordiform boxes got old a while ago. Seriously, how many points would you score with him or her if you showed up with a bouquet of flower, instead of flowers? And if you don’t have a him or a her, wouldn’t a bunch of bud just for yourself make the day a bit better? Probably.

So come in and see us. We still have plenty of reloadable gift cards, which are infinitely more practical than my marijuana bouquet idea, and we still have a little Foria Pleasure left that we’re selling at 20% off while supplies last. And best of all, we’re having a Valentine’s Day special on all our infused chocolates (20% off), so even if you’re a traditionalist who goes the heart-shaped-box-route, at least you’ll be able to fill it with something better than all that hazelnut nonsense that just gets picked through anyway. See what I mean when I say We’re Your Best Buds?!

Stoners and Stigmas

Posted on February 3, 2018 - 9:00 am

I recently met a man in our dispensary who builds skyscrapers in Cincinnati. He started small, of course, building his business out of the back of his truck, but after a few decades of work, real work, he found freedom. He landed the type of life that allows him to fly to Durango on his private jet—a G6, like the one Pitbull raps about—to spend the weekend here just for the hell of it, buying a fistful of tickets for his friends so they could all ride that railroad of ours on a whim. And this man was carefree. He asked me if cameras were allowed (of course they are!), and then he asked his wife to take his picture. She shook her head slowly with disappointment, the way wives do, and she asked the man what would happen if his employees saw the picture, or worse yet, his mother. His answer sticks with me:

“This is how I party, and there’s nothing wrong with marijuana. I’ve worked hard my whole life to stand here holding this pot, and anybody who has a problem with it can go fill in the blank.”

Such a statement sounds inelegant at first, but really, it’s a beautiful declaration of honesty and freedom. So, the man’s wife smiled in that long-suffering way that only comes from love, and then she took his picture. The man shook my hand, put thirty dollars in our tip cup, and then walked out with his bag of weed in one hand, his wife’s bejeweled fingers in the other.

And even more recently, I met four men in our dispensary who flew here together on their private jet from Houston. They were tall and gracile in their leather boots, laughing and slapping backs, and they looked like they came from old money, the kind that’s black and bubbled up in their grandparents’ backyard. The four men flew in for the snow, but when they couldn’t find any, they decided to get high instead. They walked into our dispensary and saw something kindred in me, I guess, because each man made sure to shake my hand and get my name. I sold them edibles and vape pens and a whole panoply of pot products, and I threw in a couple koozies for fun, thinking men from Texas might find them especially useful.

I went to the bar later than night with my wife and a few friends on one of those random trips out, and as soon as I walked into The Ranch, I heard a loud chorus of “Jesse!!!” from the back of the bar. Those four guys from Texas were standing around the pool table, holding up beers wrapped snuggly in koozies that said, “The Greenery.” I introduced them to my wife (she shook her head slowly at my new friends, the way wives do), and we played pool for a while, right before they jumped back on their jet for another trip to find skiable snow.

Look, I know I’m rambling, but the picture I’m painting for you here proves that “stoners” aren’t always what you’d expect. Yes, wooks exist and their hippie magic is frightful, but for the most part, people who smoke pot are just like people who don’t smoke pot. I kid you not, I’ve sold to priests and teachers and surgeons and diplomats, and if not for the fact that each of them stood in front of me and bought marijuana, it wouldn’t have been possible to tell they were stoners, as if being one were a bad thing in the first place.

So why is the term “stoner” still a negative thing? Is it thanks to the stigma the bad guys birthed to justify their righteously unjust war on drugs? Probably.

Don’t worry, I’m not gunna get all preachy and complain about the fallacy of prohibition, but I do want to address the anti-pot stigma that seems to be sticking around like a virulent flu. I think this might be the seventh time I’ve put it in writing, but marijuana is medicine, and if not for that pesky stigma, this medicine could help more people. From the sweet old lady with tired hands who could find reprieve from her arthritis with a cannabis salve, but doesn’t, to the stage-four cancer patient who could find relief with marijuana, but never does: there are plenty of people out there denying themselves something legal and effective simply because of the stigma. Doesn’t that suck?

And that same stigma stops some people from getting high recreationally too, you know, for no other reason than to feel abnormally good, and that’s a travesty too. Because guess what? Pot is awesome. It makes good days better, and it doesn’t come with a hangover. Most of us at The Greenery smoke the stuff loud and proud because we have more pressing matters to worry about than stigmas, but that’s a luxury. Not everybody lives in a place like this or has a job like this, and that stigma is heavier for them.

But I want you to know that we’re trying to fix that. There are real life badasses who toil here behind the scenes. They stay in the backrooms of our dispensary and they write letters and lobby law makers, and they do their damnedest to defeat that annoying “stoner” stigma we’ve been living with for years. I’m not making that up, even though it sounds a little cryptic; we even have a consulting service that helps people in other states figure out the legal weed game. Cool, right?

So, don’t worry. There’s no stigma in our shop. We won’t judge you for a damn thing when you walk in, even if you’ve been putting off your first experience with cannabis for seventy years (which is something I heard from a customer just last week). Our people are professional and forthright, and we do our best to break the “stoner” stereotype daily with our service, because We’re Your Best Buds!

Marijuana Gift Baskets

Posted on November 25, 2017 - 9:00 am

Durango dispensary, Durango dispensaries, durango marijuana, marijuana gifts, durango, the greenery

I have the same first name as my brother-in-law. I’ve known him for most of my life—we grew up together in a rather remote part of Alaska, friends long before we became family—and we’ve always shared that strange rivalry that lives between two people with the same first name. He calls me “#2,” in a spot-on Dr. Evil voice, and I call him a whole litany of things that’re much worse. And in another odd little twist of coincidence, we’re both in the marijuana industry: my brother-in-law is a hipster who grows medical marijuana legally in the forests of California (wrongly thinking that his pot is the best), and I sell the stuff just as legally here in Colorado, when I’m not sitting behind this keyboard writing about it.

However, I don’t see my brother-in-law that often because his job isn’t as easy as it sounds, and I’m mired in the mountains of Colorado by all the stuff that makes me an adult. So, when we get together, it’s usually over the holidays. And when we give gifts, they’re usually marijuana-related (I’m sure you saw that one coming). If I go there, he gives me more pot than a person can handle, but that’s understandable given that he has a whole terraced mountainside to play with. And when he comes here, I sit him down at my dining room table and spread in front of him a panoply of pot and paraphernalia. I give him edibles and concentrates and the best marijuana in Durango, and we frolic through it virtually, getting high throughout the holidays.

For the record, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with using marijuana to celebrate the holidays. Alcohol usually gets all the attention thanks to hot-buttered rums and spiced wines and eggnog that’ll blur your vision, but that stuff just fills you up and slows you down, and one drink too many will put the “regret” in “season’s greetings” (it’s in there, I think). That’s why I like getting high instead. I like the way the Christmas lights sparkle and multiply with a head full of sativa haze; I like the way decadent food tastes richer during a deep Indica body high; I like the way a houseful of relatives becomes bearable thanks to any sort of marijuana. And above all else, I love the fact that gifting marijuana for the holidays is legal.

But it hasn’t always been this way. I’ve known my brother-in-law for nearly three decades, but we’ve only shared a few years of legal gift giving. Once upon a time, I’d have to give him pot the old-fashioned way, lowkey while the older relatives were snoring on the couch, too stuffed to notice. We’d have to smoke it outside in the cold Alaskan harshness, and then we’d sneak inside, hoping that grandma’s potpourri would cover the smell of our pot. However, none of that matters now, because pot is perfectly legal. If you feel like it, you can stuff stockings with cannabis, wrap boxes full of bud, or put your mom’s bourbon balls to shame with a box full of infused turtle brownies. These are wonderful times.

And this year, I’m stepping things up a little bit when my brother-in-law comes to town, because at The Greenery, we’re selling marijuana gift sets all throughout the holiday season. Yeah, that’s right, you can now walk into a dispensary and get a gift bag that’ll be appreciated for sure, because marijuana will make merry any Krampus, and it’s the one gift you’ll give this year that you know for a fact won’t be returned (and not just because it isn’t legal to do so). Anyway, we’re offering seven different gift sets, and here’s the breakdown:

1.) Flower Flight. Just like a flight of craft microbrews, this set runs the gamut. It includes 1 gram of CBD rich marijuana (like our CBD Mango Haze, which is just as festive as it sounds), 1 gram of our house-made Caviar, and 3 grams of your choice. This set will run you between $78.58 and $82.86 before tax, depending on flower choice.

2.) Sativa Flower Flight. Remember, Sativa is the strain that gives you energy, and this set would be perfect for Christmas morning. It’ll run you between $57 and $63 before tax depending on your selections, and you’ll get 4 different grams of the best Sativa flower on the planet.

3.) Indica Flower Flight. This one is the antithesis of number two, but for the same price, you’ll get four grams of deeply relaxing Indica, all bagged up and ready to give to that certain someone who needs to chill the hell out for the holidays.

4.) Sleep Gift Set. This one is $85.20 after tax, and it includes 1 LucidMood Sleep (which is an awesome, preloaded vape pen), 1 Magic Buzz Sleep (a single-serving infused drink with melatonin), 1 Indica MarQaha Tincture, and 1 Indica pre-rolled joint (which contains 1 gram of nighttime flower).

5.) Relax Gift Set. This one is $78 after tax, and it includes 1 LucidMood Relax, 1 single-serving infused hot chocolate with marshmallows, 1 box of Dixie Relaxing Mints, and 1 Indica pre-rolled joint.

6.) Party Gift Set. For $86.40 after tax, you’ll get a two-pack of Toast slices, 1 sucker (the flavor is up to you), 1 pack of Clockwork infused coffee (one of these days, I’m going to write an entire post about how awesome marijuana coffee is in the morning), and 1 Caviar pre-rolled joint. Seriously, this gift set is aptly named.

7.) Adventure Gift Set. This set was custom built for Durango. For $85.20 after tax, you’ll get 1 LucidMood Energy, 1 Chapstick (yes, they make marijuana Chapstick), 1 package of Sativa Granola, and 1 Sativa pre-rolled joint.

As a bonus, if you come in and buy one of these sets for someone, we’ll throw in a $1 pre-rolled joint just for you because you’re so thoughtful (between you and me, there’s no way we’ll know if you’re buying the gift set for yourself, because who’s to say you don’t deserve it?). Of course, there are limitations and restrictions, so please come into our store for details (sorry for sounding like a commercial).

And finally, for the first time ever, we’ll also be selling loadable gift cards at The Greenery. Yes, actual gift cards you can load with any amount, just like the ones you get at coffee shops, but ours are better, you know… because “marijuana.” How cool is that? Everyone I know always seems to end up with a stack of plastic cards after the holidays, usually ones that’re only good for eating out or shopping online, but now, one of those cards will actually buy its recipient marijuana, as long as that recipient is 21 years or older with a valid ID. Like I said, these are wonderful times.

Anyway, this Christmas, I’m going to buy my brother-in-law the Flower Flight gift set. I’m going to walk in and pay for it, let one of our knowledgeable budtenders pack it up in a discrete brown paper bag with green tissue paper (just like they’ll do for you), I’m going to put a tag on it that says “to you, from #2,” and I’m going to smile like a winner when he smokes what’s inside and is forced to admit that Colorado pot is simply better than the west-coast stuff he grows in the woods. Sure, my gift set is going to come with an “I told you so,” but yours doesn’t have to.

So please, come in and see what I’m talking about. This year, any of our friendly budtenders can help you find that perfect gift for just about anyone, because We’re Your Best Buds, and we do the holidays right.

The Greenery Grow

Posted on November 4, 2017 - 9:00 am

I was a teenager the first time I saw a marijuana plant. It was a sickly thing, growing stunted and slightly brown in an Alaskan basement, but it was still wonderful.

My friend had modified his chest-of-drawers. He’d taken the fronts off each drawer, and then he’d nailed them back onto the front of his bureau. And then he’d hinged the entire front face of his chest-of-drawers so it would open, like some sort of secret enclave. He’d drilled a hole in the back and wired it for electricity, and then he’d lined the inside with tinfoil to make it reflective. A single grow light had been hung in the top, and a fan was attached right below it. In the dark of night, glowing light escaped from the cracks in my friend’s modified bureau and the whole thing hummed with the fan’s white noise—my friend’s chest-of-drawers looked and sounded haunted, as if a porthole to another dimension were contained inside instead of a growing plant. It was downright Narnian.

And it really was mystical the first time I saw my friend’s contraption. He took me down into his basement—we told his parents we were doing homework—and he stood in front of his chest-of-drawers with a wide smile, looking like a gameshow host about to do a big reveal. He unlatched the front of his bureau and then he swung it open while singing out a single note, as if what he was showing me were holy: the inside of my friend’s invention was gleaming golden with a little green plant right in the middle, and it blew my mind. My friend was MacGyver! How the hell had he figured out a way to grow marijuana in his parent’s house without them noticing? How’d they overlooked the fact that my friend had stopped putting away his clothes because he’d turned his chest-of-drawers into a grow room? I was dumfounded, and twenty years later, I still shake my head in awe when I think back to that moment.

But the first time I saw a growing pot plant was nothing like the most recent time: our head grower gave me a tour of The Greenery’s Grow, and the experience was so striking that I simply had to write about it. For the record, marijuana is a weed, plain and simple. If you walked by a ditch and threw in a few pot seeds like a cooler version of Johnny Appleseed, they’d eventually sprout and grow into flowering marijuana. But ditch-weed is a far cry from the flower that a master grower can produce, and the product that comes from our grow is simply the best in town because our cultivation team takes the art seriously:

Before walking into our facility, Mike had me step into a shallow rubber tray containing a mild solution of bleach and water. And before walking further, I had to step on a huge mat of sticky paper (kind of like flypaper for humans) to remove all the unwanted particulates from the outside world that might’ve hitched a ride on my shoes. Once inside, it felt like I was standing in a laboratory. There were professionally labeled metallic tents everywhere, looking like they came straight from NASA. There was a huge bottle of CO2 secured to the outside of the building; it pumped in regimented amounts of the gas pot-plants like to eat. There was a maze of custom air conditioning ductwork webbing across the ceiling; there were light-emitting ceramic lights humming above the plants like artificial suns; there were professionally constructed trellises around the plants and mounted fans to give the plants healthy stress. And the plants themselves were beautiful: huge colas of crystalline flower bowing their stems with weight, perfuming the air with an intoxicating smell. Everything was perfect, and the amount of thought and effort and science that went into our grow facility made me proud to be a part of this company, if I’m being honest, because this sort of thing matters. And I’ll tell you why.

Every so often, someone will come into our dispensary looking for a specific strain, and last Friday, one such man came in looking for True Berry. No kidding, he said it was the “best strain for meditative flute playing.” I smiled, told the man he was in luck, and then I let him smell a sample of our Greenery-grown True Berry. And as soon as I did, I could see via his expression that that he’d found something unexpected. His eyes got wide and he looked up, saying with his face that this was the best pot he’d ever smelled. So, I told him all about it, and I told him about our grow. I told him how we use living soil instead of hydroponics, and I told him that we use predatorial bugs instead of insecticides. I told him that we grow it in small batches, just like distilling fine whiskey, and I told him that he wouldn’t find a better True Berry flower anywhere else in the world. And because of the effort put in by our growers, I wasn’t lying.

So please, if you’d like to experience what it’s like to smoke something grown with true skill in a real grow facility (or if you’re looking for the best meditative-flute-playing marijuana in the world), just check out our menu to see if we’re selling Greenery-grown True Berry. And then come in so one of our budtenders can show you exactly what I’m talking about. You’ll see that we really do have the best pot in town, and you’ll see why we say We’re Your Best Buds!

Best Bud of the Month

Posted on October 14, 2017 - 9:00 am

edibles, marijuana, cannabis, pot, western slope, budtender, durango dispensaries

Savanna Bristol
Assistant Compliance Manager & Flower Purchaser

About your Best Bud:

Savanna Bristol is a wee bit clumsy; running into things is a hobby of hers. Actually, I’ve seen her come close to death three times in a single shift. And she definitely needs to stay away from sharp objects. The last time we worked together, she got a metal splinter stuck in her finger (you know, “somehow”), and then when she walked by the couch, it “bit her leg” and she started bleeding. And her affliction goes beyond the workplace as well: this one time, Savanna decided to stand on top of Baker’s Bridge, and it didn’t go too well. Her friend didn’t want to jump, so Savanna may, or may not, have pushed him off. And then when she jumped after, she landed in a sitting position, and it broke her back—two of her vertebrae went “poof,” as she says it, but Savanna still looks back with a laugh when she tells the story.

However, her clumsiness doesn’t matter because Savanna has brains—she’s our assistant compliance manager, and it’s her job to steer our dispensary through all the weird, esoteric little regulations the state throws at us. She checks potency profiles and child-resistant packaging and font sizes, and she dedicates 100% of her attention to making sure we’re compliant (maybe that’s why she’s so clumsy). But here’s the rest of her story:

Q: When did you start working for The Greenery?
Savanna: “March of 2016.”

Q: What’s your favorite way to enjoy marijuana?
Savanna: “I love dabbing—it’s one hit, one high. And right now, I love the rosin we’re making. Seriously. The flavor is awesome, and the high is perfect!”

Q: What’s your favorite outdoor activity?
Savanna: “I love tubing the river or paddle-boarding the lake with my dog.”

Q: Tell us about your pet.
Savanna: “Nala is a seventy-five-pound Pitbull, but she’s a baby. She just has too much love to give.”

Q: Which station do you stream while you’re working at The Greenery?
Savanna: “Whichever one suits my mood, but it’s usually Die Antwoord or Disney music… I love Disney music.”

Q: What do you like most about working at The Greenery?
Savanna: “I love my coworkers and my customers. It doesn’t matter who you are; when you come into The Greenery, you’re in a good mood.”

Well, that’s Savanna. In a way, she’s our dispensary diva. She likes things her way, and if she doesn’t get it, she’s likely to throw a big bag of pot at your face (and fall down in the process). But frankly, there’s nothing wrong with her way, because she knows this industry inside and out, and it’s due to her efforts that we run a completely compliant dispensary. And she has good taste in pot, which is important—Savanna’s second duty is to order all the flower on our menu, and thanks to her, we’re able to offer ten premium strains of boutique flower to Durango each and every day. For her steadfast dedication to compliance, and for keeping our shelves stocked, The Greenery is in Savanna’s debt, and because of that, she is Your Best Bud for October! Thank you, Savanna!

420 Friendly in Durango, Colorado

Posted on October 7, 2017 - 9:00 am

pre-roll, joint, 420, 420 friendly, marijuana, cannabis, weed, pot, smoke

Just about everybody knows that “420” has something to do with pot, and just about everybody knows that “420 friendly” has something to do with businesses that support recreational marijuana use. But do you know where “420” comes from?

As it turns out, some kids in California coined the term, but I didn’t know that when I was a college freshman. At the time, I lived in Eugene, Oregon. My balcony overlooked Pine Street, and I remember watching from my lawn chair as all the other college kids went to class, exercised on the streets, did all the things college kids were supposed to do. I remember the taste of that west coast weed, I remember the deep bass bleeding from our living room speakers, and I remember laughing with my friends as we smoked our way into oblivion at 4:20 on some random afternoon.

Eugene is a verdant place, where the heat is ripe and everybody looks like they belong in an outdoors magazine. It’s a liberal college town, one so quintessential that you’ve seen it in movies, and pot was just a part of life. We got high every day at 4:20 because that’s what you were supposed to do. We had our rituals, we used alarm clocks. But we thought “420” was the call-code cops used to radio in a charge for marijuana possession. It made sense: when Snoop Dog said “187 on an undercover cop,” he meant murder; the band 311 chose their name because “311” is the call-code for indecent exposure; “420” obviously had something to do with cops and smoking pot (which is why it was so cool). But I was young and clueless—sometimes, clichés really do fit best—and I didn’t know the truth:

Back in 1971, there was group of Californian kids who called themselves the “Waldos,” and San Rafael was their hood. They were athletic teenaged boys and best friends. I’m sure they wore sweatbands in their shaggy hair, and striped socks pulled all the way up to their knees—I’m sure their music was loud, and I’m sure the ‘66 Impala they drove around town still felt modern and new.

One day, one of the Waldos heard about a military man who lived in the Point Reyes Forest. He was shipping out somewhere, leaving his post on the peninsula, and he wouldn’t be around to guard his pot-patch, growing somewhere out in the forest. One of the Waldos even had a treasure map. So, they made a plan: every day after school and track, they’d meet at 4:20 by a Louis Pasteur statue next to the wall behind which they usually got stoned (incidentally, this wall put the “wall” in “Waldos”). They’d start smoking immediately, and then they’d drive out into the Point Reyes Forest. They’d get out of that ‘66 Impala and they’d roam the loamy forest floor, hunting through the dappled sunlight for a hidden glen of unguarded pot plants. They never found what they were looking for, even after two weeks’ worth of searching, but they did find a form of immortality, because the Waldos created something that’ll live on forever.

The rest of the story is easy-cheesy: one of the Waldos had a loose connection to one of the Grateful Dead, and “420” found a carrier, just like the common cold. And it spread through the Waldos’ school, like things do. The virgin-minded freshmen watched with awe as the Waldos got high behind their wall, and after each graduating class, the Waldos lived on, reincarnated in a younger troop. After time, those two weeks’ worth of raiding into the Point Reyes Forest were forgotten, but the time to get high wasn’t: school still ended at the same time, so did track practice, and that statue of Pasture still stood watch over the new kids, doing his best to keep their minds from curdling. The original Waldos grew up and moved and had children of their own, and the origin story behind 420 was diluted with myth and by geography until it found me sitting on that balcony in Eugene, smoking my way into oblivion, convinced in totality that my alarm was going off because of a police call-code.

Anyway, seventeen years later, businesses have started adopting “420 friendly” as a lowkey way to advertise that they’re cool with pot; it provides for their customers an appreciated level of discretion. And at least five times a day, someone will come in and ask me if I know of any 420-friendly places in town. First and foremost, I tell these customers that per Colorado state law, marijuana can only be smoked on private property with the property owner’s permission. Quite a few of the local hotels that have smoking rooms will allow you to smoke marijuana in their rooms, but here’s the important part: always ask first. I know it might seem a bit counterintuitive to ask someone at the front desk if it’s okay to get high in your room, but trust me, these people are used to the question, so there’s no point in being timid (after all, it’s legal now). And if you’re staying in a hotel that doesn’t allow in-room smoking, just ask if you can use their designated smoking area—the same principal applies, and if you get permission, everything is peachy on the legal front.

And there are a few other businesses in town with outdoor seating that don’t mind too much if you get high on their property, especially if you’re using something discrete, like a marijuana vape pen (again, always ask). But if you’re still leery on the legality, please feel free to come into The Greenery and ask one of our knowledgeable budtenders about the regulations; after all, The Greenery is the friendliest 420-friendly place in town. We’ll tell you when and where you can smoke, and we’ll do our best to make sure your 4:20 is comfortable and legal, because We’re Your Best Buds, and that’s what we do.

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