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Communist Cannabis

I want you to picture a naked Russian man standing next to a horse without a saddle (I promise this has something to do with pot, so hang in there). He’s in the Chu Valley, right between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and it’s a nice day. The grasslands around him are flat and verdant—in fact, he’s standing on the border of a large marijuana forest where the plants are ten feet tall. He’s not alone, but everyone is freshly bathed and naked, just like he is.

The naked man gets on his horse, and a few of his naked friends get on their bareback horses as well, but most remain on their feet. And then the whole group starts singing and laughing, calling out cries of jubilation, right before they ride and run with abandon through the forest of marijuana (which, by the way, is called “dichka” in Russia).

The leaves and buds whip the Russians’ bodies and their horses, and soon, everyone is covered with a thick coating of “kief,” which is a combination of trichome heads and plant matter (all the crystal-goodness that covers ripe marijuana). The group of people, some running and some riding, methodically trample the entire marijuana field so they can collect as much kief as possible, and then they ride or walk back to camp, singing and laughing. Once there, the naked, dichka-covered Russians stand on pieces of canvas, and then different Russians (fully dressed ones) use wooden tools to scrape all the kief off their naked friends and their horses. The mixture of kief and sweat is then pressed into bricks and sundried into Russian Hashish, which they call “Plastilin.” And yes, the grossness of this story makes it a tad difficult to believe, but you can read a corroborating article HERE (but as a tip, do not google “naked Russian hash making” on your company computer like I just did, because the images you’ll find have nothing to do with marijuana). Crazy, right?

This has been going on for as long as dichka has been growing in the Chu valley, and to this day, plastilin is still one of the most sought-after forms of hashish in the world. And the name is interesting, now that I think about it, because once it’s dried, this form of hashish looks and feels just like plasticine clay (the colorful stuff you used to play with in preschool). Granted, most of the reason people search for this stuff is that it’s so rare, so if it were widely available, I doubt people would crave it because hash without human and horse sweat is undoubtably better. And that’s where we come in given that we operate our very own Hash Factory that specializes in making international hashish.

But don’t worry, we won’t be making Russian Hash any time soon because I doubt Colorado would let us do anything naked, and we don’t own any horses. Frankly, I just wanted to tell you about this stuff to prove that we know the down-and-dirty about foreign hashes, and to point out that the international hashes that we do make aren’t nearly as gross. You can read about our Moroccan hash HERE and our Lebanese hash HERE, and you’ll be delighted to know that you can try either one without finding a single horsehair in your pipe. You’re welcome.

That being said, all the blogs I’ve written in the past about our traditional hashes have steered you right here to Durango, Colorado, which is the source for classic concentrates in the Southwest. But did you know that you don’t have to come to Durango to try our hashish? In the past, I imagine it’s been frustrating for you out-of-towners to read about our hash without being able to try it, and for that, I apologize. It’s taken me this long to realize I’ve never told you that our traditional hash is available in over 160 dispensaries across Colorado, and all you have to do to find the closest one is look at our hash-finder map that you can see HERE. Isn’t that wonderful?

The reason that our hashes are so much better than everything else out there is that we don’t use hydrocarbons to make our products; we don’t need butane to make concentrates like everyone else because the old-school way is just fine. We tumble our pot and collect the kief, and then we bake it or press it to make the most wholistic form of hashish you can imagine, and our processes stand the test of time because people have been making hash just like we do for thousands of years. So, come see us, or click on the map to go see one of our friends, because international hashes are wonderful, and because We’re Your Best Buds!

The History of Hashish

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The elusive origins of hashish are steeped in mythology and shrouded in mystery, thus, arriving to a conclusion about just when humans began to craft concentrates from the Cannabis plant is extremely difficult. Archaeological evidence and reference to sieving cannabis resin or hashish seems to appear in 9th century Muslim texts, however, there are also depictions of the Cannabis plant that date back roughly 15,000 years ago to the Neolithic Jomon period, which leads one to ask: when did our ancestors begin to figure out cannabis concentrates? The best we can do is an educated guess: applied knowledge and logical reasoning seem to bring one to the conclusion that our ancient ancestors’ discovery of hashish coincided with evolution of agriculture.

Before moving forward, it may be helpful to clarify what is meant by “Hashish” or, you may have heard it simply referred to as, “hash.” As defined by Hashish Master, Frenchy Cannoli in a Weed World Magazine article, titled The Origins of Concentrate,  hashish is “a psychoactive drug made from sieving the resin glands of dried Cannabis flowers and pressing them with a source of heat.”

As mentioned earlier, there is strong evidence that shows humans have had a relationship with the cannabis plant for thousands of years. In fact, Cannabis was among the very first plants to be “domesticated by humanity” and so, it is reasonable to deduce that we had gained an intimate knowledge of the plant. Anyone with experience in Cannabis cultivation knows the inevitability of the sticky resin buildup on the hands and fingers. Our Neolithic ancestors would have experienced this also, and thus, this inevitable layer of resin on the hands of ancient cannabis cultivators, Frenchy concludes, would theoretically be the first concentrate made, albeit accidentally.

This method of live resin collection, would be rediscovered and named, ‘charas’ thousands of years later in the Himalayas. According to Frenchy, charas is the oldest form of concentrate, and remains the primary collection method employed today in the Himalayas.

Another method of resin collection from dry plants- which involves sieving to separate the resin glands from the plant material- would develop later. While evidence shows that humans have had the basketry technology necessary to sieve seeds from plants, and therefore, adapt that technology to collect dry cannabis resin since prehistoric times, no archaeological evidence exists to date hashish production that far back- although arriving to that conclusion is no great logical leap.

We know, from literary reference  in The Tale of Two Hashish-Eaters from the traditional Arabic text, 1001 Nights, that the use of  hashish was commonly known by the 11th & 12th centuries.  Though it is reasonable to believe it was practiced in 10th century at least from the earliest myth surrounding hashish, The Old Man of the Mountains, Hasan ibn al-Sabbah and his legendary assassins, who were fabled take hashish (it is likely that the word ‘assassin’ is thus derived from ‘hashishin’ as is referenced in the film John Wick III). Beyond these early stories, there is mention to eating hashish in 9th century Muslim texts by alchemists al-Razi and Ibn Wahshiyya. At the earliest, we can be comfortable in saying eating hashish was established sometime around the 9th century.

Early use of cannabis resin concentrate would have first been employed in incense, then the psychoactive properties certainly would have been discovered says master Frenchy Cannoli (perhaps by accidental ingestion of the resin layer on hands of ancient cultivators), and then ingested (as suggested in 1001 Nights), and lastly inhaled as smoke. Cannabis historian, Robert C Clarke, says in his book Cannabis Evolution and Ethnobotany, says that hashish’s use was probably “more widespread than previously recognized.”

Part of hashish’s cloudy origins is likely due to religious beliefs or trade advantages in keeping techniques secretive, explains Frenchy, as was the case with highly valued incense. Olfactory sensations have been used for “sacred or healing purposes” for millennia. Some incenses were valued so highly in the ancient world, that it was obviously advantageous to keep the ‘recipes’ and methods secret. The same would be the case of early hashish methods.

We likely ingested hashish long before we inhaled it, although we could never be certain, there has been three discoveries of pipes that possibly could have been used for cannabis (according to Clarke) that date prior to the Columbian era. What solid evidence that we have, however, seems to indicate that the rise of smoking hashish coincided with the advent of the rise of tobacco smoking from the New World: “Soon after tobacco was introduced to Eurasia, hashish was mixed with it and smoked.” says Robert Clarke. This happens in the early 16th century. Hashish “tagged along on the international success of tobacco, thus the hashish market blossomed anew within a few decades.”

It is impossible to determine exactly when humans began to use hashish or a form of concentrate, however, we do know that the practice had been established by ancient times and was likely discovered long before it was recorded with the methods shrouded in secrecy. Humanity’s relationship with cannabis concentrates has a long and colorful history.

That history is alive today at The Greenery Hash Factory, where we favor tradition in hand-crafting our hashes. The Greenery Hash Factory brings authentic hashish to Colorado in the form of Kief Brick Hash, Lebanese Hash, Moroccan Hash, and Hash Joints. All our hashes can be found at The Greenery, our Durango dispensary, and these dispensaries across the state of Colorado.

We’re your best buds!

The THC Classic

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I’m still getting used to the idea of marijuana business trips. The business trip part is simple enough because I did that for over a decade—I got used to the slacks and nice shirts, the hotels and continental breakfasts, the company bar tabs and small talk. And when you think about it, nothing should change if you throw marijuana into the mix because legalized marijuana has created a business that’s just as legitimate as all the others, but it’s still weird. Thus far, I’ve been on four business trips for our marijuana company, and I’m planning my fifth. I grab my business cards and my laptop and my nice shirts just like I used to, and I travel around selling commodities to business owners just like I used to. And it was all getting workaday just like it used to be, starting to feel normal, but during the last week of March, I went on a business trip that would remind me of just how odd this whole thing really is.

Long story short, we decided to enter a few products from our Greenery Hash Factory in The THC Classic that’s put on annually by Rooster Magazine. We’d never entered a competition like this one before because we thought going up against the big guys might be tilting at windmills; some of those companies operate chains of dispensaries and concentrate production facilities that’ve been open since the beginning. So, when we got the call that we’d need to show up to accept our awards, it seemed a bit surreal. But we shifted schedules here in the shop so the Hash Factory could go as a team, we grabbed our business cards and laptops, and we hit the road for Denver.

We checked into our hotel and grabbed a bite to eat. We called an Uber and headed down to the Temple Nightclub, where the award ceremony would be held. Our Uber driver was from Morocco, which we took to be a good sign because one of our contest entries was our Moroccan Hash, but we still didn’t know what to expect. When we showed up, the scene was exactly what you’d expect at a nightclub: there were red ropes and a line, there were irritable bouncers and flashing lights, and there were party girls dressed in grass skirts and coconut braziers who were obviously paid to be there. We waited in line, endured the pat-down, and then walked into a thumping nightclub that was packed with 1,000 people who worked in the cannabis industry. It was crazy.

Cheech Marin (from Cheech and Chong) was rumored to be somewhere in the crowd, but I never saw the guy, but two of my team members got a picture with Afroman who ended up playing a concert to close out the night. A little later, the award ceremony started, with speeches and applause exactly like you’d expect, and we ended up taking home two trophies, one for our Caviar, and one for our Lebanese Hash. Isn’t that insane? Not that long ago, we’d be locked up for making hash and distributing it across Colorado, but now, we get to walk onto a stage, shake hands with the guy holding a microphone, and then hold our trophies high as a crowd of 1,000 marijuana professionals cheer our accomplishment. It was one hell of a day.

To back up a bit, “caviar” is marijuana flower that has been coated in hash oil and kief, and Lebanese Hash is an old-school concentrate that’s made from pressed kief, just like the stuff that was smuggled into the States way-back-when. And I’m not just talking about this stuff because of the two new trophies that are sitting in our Durango dispensary; you can also buy our hash, and if you’re in Durango, you’ll need to come to us because we’re the only people in town selling it. Just be prepared to hear us call our hash “award-winning,” because we now have a couple trophies to prove that we really are Your Best Buds!

hash,

A Good Day with Cannabis

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Do you remember that “It Was a Good Day” song by Ice Cube? If not, it’s a classic, and you need to listen to it immediately, but if you do, I apologize for getting it stuck in your head. But the reason I ask is that recently, I read a news story wherein a bunch of rap nerds got together and figured out exactly which day Ice Cube was talking about: it was January 20th, 1992.

They used all the clues in the song to figure it out: there was “no smog,” Yo! MTV Raps was on TV, the Lakers beat the Super Sonics, and Ice Cube got a page on his beeper from Kim. If you figure out the song’s release date, look at the years when beepers were used, check the stats for Lakers wins, and the weather report for smog, you get the exact “good day.” Of course, back in 2012 when Ice Cube gave an interview about the song, he said it was a fictional day, but that’s not why I’m writing this: in his song, Ice Cube mentions the “chronic,” which is a prerequisite for any “good day.” That got me thinking about the perfect day with cannabis—a day you can plan and enjoy intentionally, because sometimes, good days need to be forced. So, if I were to plan the perfect day with cannabis, this is how I’d do it:

Step one, wake-and-bake. There’s nothing wrong with pot in the morning, and anyone who says otherwise hasn’t tried it. On lazy Sundays, I like to wake up with a good Bubble Gum joint, or something else sativa-dominant, and we sell them for $10 out-the-door here in our Durango dispensary. And then after I put out my joint to save for later (smoking an entire gram in the morning might cut the day a bit short), I’d mix a packet of Lucky Turtle 1:1 Honey into my coffee. These single serving packs of honey cost $9, and they deliver 10mg of THC and CBD. Granted, if you’d prefer fewer than 10mg in the morning (or if you don’t like overly-sweet coffee), just use half the packet. And timing is important: the high from your joint will last about an hour and a half, and it’ll take the honey about an hour and a half to kick in fully, so drink that coffee right after you put down the joint—for the perfect good day, a high must be maintained.

The next step would be to go out and see the world. I like having my wife drive me around to thrift shops and breakfast places while I marvel at the bright day, couched comfortably in my buzz (but if you stop for breakfast, remember, there’s nothing wrong with bacon even though Ice Cube’s good day started when mom cooked breakfast with “no hog”). Then we go home to do chores and watch daytime TV; this is when my vape pen comes into play. I like to keep a terpene-rich distillate pen in my pocket, something like the Craft Reserve from O.pen that’s on our menu, and I lean towards the hybrid side of things as the day creeps by. I’ll take a puff or two when normalcy starts to creep back in, and it’ll carry me through to lunch when I smash a BLT and then load a bowl. Just like with the vape pen, my midday bowl is always a perfect hybrid, something like Blue Dream, because that even balance between mental energy and physical relaxation pairs perfectly with noontime.

This is when I start watching something campy like “Ancient Aliens” (as it turns out, the History Channel would have you believe aliens are responsible for just about everything except pot). As the day gets older, I smoke and vape as needed, but if you’re a fan of baths, I’d recommend throwing some THC bath salt into the mix. We sell a rejuvenating bath salt that’s infused with eucalyptus and cannabis, it’ll soothe you until nighttime rolls around, because that’s when it’s time to kick things up a notch.

Next, for dark nights, I like dark hash, like a good Moroccan or an Indica-dominant bubble hash. And that’s pretty convenient given that we operate our own Hash Factory, and we’re the only company in Colorado that manufactures and distributes classic concentrates such as Moroccan or Lebanese hash. So, to start my perfect evening to cap off that good day, I’d throw a pinch of Moroccan on top of a deep Indica like Pakistani Chitral Kush, smoke it, and then wait for the mind-numbing, body sedating high to knock me down into the couch (these days, it’s the only way to make the nightly news bearable). And then right before bed, I’d eat a brownie from Love’s Oven. They’re made with canna-butter which is difficult to find these days, they totally count as a desert, and the relaxing high would keep me sleeping through the night. Boom; the perfect end to a good day with cannabis (and there’s no law saying you can’t have two days like this in a row, so wake up and repeat as necessary).

But this good day isn’t possible without cannabis, so come see us first. We’re located at 208 Parker Avenue right here in Durango, and we’re open every day (for hours, click HERE). Just make sure to bring your valid, government-issued I.D. proving that you’re 21 or older, because good days with cannabis are for grownups only. And remember, We’re Your Best Buds!

Solventless Saturday Deal

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I love Taco Tuesday. Actually, in the year 2020, Cinco De Mayo falls on a Taco Tuesday, and my calendar is already marked because that day is gunna be epic. But if I’m being honest, I think I like “Taco Tuesday” for the two “tee” sounds instead of the “taco” or the “Tuesday” part, because I’m not really a fan of either one when they’re apart.

But I digress…

My point here is that most day-specific deals are fun because the alliteration makes them sound so cool: we sell a half-priced gram on “Marvelous Monday” when you buy one at full price; “Waxy Wednesday” gets you fifteen percent off shatter and a few other products; “Thankful Thursday” lets you pick any one item to discount by fifteen percent. See what I mean? They’re catchy and fun and easy to remember, just like the rest of our daily deals that you can read about HERE.

However, the weekends have been neglected by The Greenery, and we apologize. Saturdays and Sundays have always been crazy enough given that our cannabis really is the best in town, so we’ve been afraid to add to the mayhem by throwing a discount into the mix. But you know what? Our Hash Factory makes solventless hashes, Saturday is a perfect day to smoke said hashes, and “Solventless Saturday” sounds super-cool thanks to all the susurrations. I might even like it better than taco Tuesday, but that kind of decision takes time to make.

Anyway, as of today (5/12/18), The Greenery will be selling our house-made solventless concentrates for fifteen percent off, and we’ll do so every Saturday because the weekends deserve discounts too, as does anyone who appreciates the purity of a traditional hash. And just in case you don’t know what qualifies as a true “solventless” hash, here’s the list:

  1. Lebanese Hash. This stuff is usually blonde, but that doesn’t matter because it’s the best. We squeeze freakishly-potent kief in a twelve-ton press until it starts to goo together, and then we cut it up and sell it by the gram. A Lebanese Hash high is my favorite because it feels like that first-time high from way-back-when, and it feels like it every time.
  2. Moroccan Hash. We bake our kief to make this one, but I’m not going to tell you how we do it because that’s super-secret stuff (read all about it HERE). The hand-rolled balls of Moroccan we sell at our Durango dispensary are dark and deep, just like a storied hash should be.
  3. Kief Brick. This is the simplest, unadulterated hash on the market, and the taste is like standing in a wind-swept field of cannabis (I might’ve been stretching a bit on that one, but I promise there’s no purer way to add flavor and potency to a bowl than with a dusting of Kief Brick).
  4. Rosin. We make ours with kief instead of flower, so it’s potent. Yes, the taste is robust and the high is insane, but you can handle it. This is the only dabbable concentrate that’s included in our Saturday special, but that’s because Rosin is the only true solventless hash you can dab.
  5. Bubble Hash. All it takes to make bubble hash correctly is a little ice-water, some of the best cannabis on earth, and a few months of trial and error, so don’t try this at home—our Bubble Hash is agitated and strained and cured, and that’s not the type of thing that should be left to amateurs.

I swear to you that the five hashes we’re discounting this Saturday and every Saturday are some of the best products available anywhere. In fact, the hashes we make are so good that they’re sold in about ten percent of all the dispensaries in Colorado, and it only took us a few months on the wholesale market to get there (seriously, look at our map HERE). Isn’t that awesome? Now you can buy some of the best hash in the world directly from the people who make it, and you can do so right here in this tiny mountain town for a price that’s better than you’ll find anywhere else.

So, come see Your Best Buds at our Durango dispensary on 208 Parker Avenue this Saturday for our solventless special. We’re open from ten to nine-thirty, and our hash will be discounted all day just for you, which is way better than tacos on Tuesday, now that I think about it.

December’s Best Bud of the Month

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Chris “they call me Chitty” Chitwood
Manufacturing Facility Manager

About your Best Bud:

Chitty is the coolest person to ever come out of Arkansas. Seriously. From the narwhal tattoo on his calf to the astronaut helmet he wore at our last company party, Chitty is as rad as they come. And he’s the only person alive who can come across as professional in purple pants; that’s exactly what he did during this interview. But he can be serious too, because that’s what it takes to end up where Chitty has landed: in two years’ time, he has climbed from budtender to grow assistant to Manufacturing Facility Manager, and at twenty-four years’ of age, he’s now the man responsible for running The Greenery Hash Factory. If you’ve ever enjoyed any of the Moroccan Hash, Bubble Hash, Kief Brick, Rosin, or Caviar we sell in our dispensary, you did so thanks to Chitty’s hard work. And this month, we thought you should meet him:

Q. When did you start working for The Greenery?
Chris. “September of 2015.”

Q. What’s your favorite way to enjoy marijuana?
Chris. “I love our Kief Brick. It’s got all the flavors and terpenes from the original flower because it’s as close to unadulterated as it gets when it comes to concentrates, and it makes a perfect bowl-topper because it kicks you hard. It’ll also make a bowl usually big enough for only three people big enough for six, and that’s awesome.”

Q. What’s your favorite outdoor activity?
Chris. “I love skiing in the winter and I’m trying to get into snowshoeing, but I need some snow first. And I love rock climbing in the summer. I’m all about that dirt-bag life.”

Q. Tell us about your pet.
Chris. “I have no pets at the moment, unfortunately.”

Q. Which station do you stream while you’re working at The Greenery?
Chris. “I love crunchy jams and serious funk. Word.”

Q. What do you like most about working at The Greenery?
Chris. “I love the people, because we all get along and communicate. And I love the job itself, because it’s chill but challenging.”

The simple fact is that Chris Chitwood will be with The Greenery for quite some time because he’s one of the lucky young professionals who found his niche early in life right here in the marijuana industry. He’s a pleasure to work with because he doles out high-fives generously, and his easy-going manner makes the day fly by (not to mention that he brings value to this company by consistently pumping out the best hash this side of Amsterdam). Mr. Chitwood, we’re in your debt, and because of that, you’re December’s Best Bud!

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Kief Brick

Kief Brick, The Greenery Hash Factory, Durango, Colorado,

Thirty years ago, my father had a poster hanging on the inside of his closet door: it said, “a puff of kief in the morning makes a man as strong as a hundred camels in the courtyard.” The poster was warped and creased with age, the font was straight out of the sixties, and a tall hookah was pictured on the left with smoke wafting from the bowl at its crown. And as a child, I had no idea what it meant. I assumed it had something to do with drugs, because those are the things you “puff,” but I ruled that out quickly because my father didn’t do drugs; he loved his polo shirts and his hard-to-read books and his government job. However, the years passed, and I finally figured out that the poster was indeed a relic from my father’s hippy youth. But I still didn’t know what “kief” was.

Fast forward to my freshman year: a guy named Drew gave me a homemade kief box as a gift. As a side note, they call them “pollen boxes” now because kief is still illegal in most backwoods states, but that’s irrelevant. Anyway, when Drew gave me the box, I opened it and looked inside. There was a fine screen in the bottom with another compartment below it. I asked Drew what the hell a “kief box” was, and after giving me an incredulous look, he told me to keep my weed in the box and shake it gently from time to time—Drew told me that the “kief” would fall through the screen into the compartment below, and that I could take it out and smoke it.

So, I did exactly what Drew suggested. And after an eighth or three of that good west coast weed, I’d collected a decent dusting of kief in the bottom of my box. I took it out, sprinkled it on top of a bowl loaded in my bong, and I smoked it. I sat back in my dorm room and I waited for the strength of one-hundred camels; I waited for the superpowers promised by my father’s poster. They never came, of course, but at least I figured out the riddle to that poster (by the way, Google says it’s worth $1000 now), and at least I discovered kief.

Kief is an Arabic word meaning “pleasure” or “intoxication,” which, if you think about them, are two pretty damn synonymous words to start with, so it makes sense that the Arabs would use only the one word. But the kief I’m talking about is something you smoke: it’s a naturally-made marijuana concentrate formed from the dried trichomes found on cannabis flower. And frankly, kief is one of my all-time favorite ways to get high. But it’s always been difficult to find, just like all the good stuff in life, because most kief is homemade and so good that most people won’t share it. However, that’s an annoyance from the past because The Greenery Hash Factory has started manufacturing and selling old-school kief right here in Durango, Colorado.

We make it simply and naturally—we put premium, boutique flower in our dry-sift machine (using a 150-micron filter), and we let friction do the work. The flower tumbles around for a while and all the wonderful kief falls into a collection bin below (it’s like that little wooden kief box of mine, but on steroids). We take out the powdery kief and compress it into a brick with a pneumatic jack, and then we cut it up into grams of “kief brick” that we sell for $30 before tax at our local dispensary. The batch I smoked just before writing this (yeah, that’s right) was made from Indiana Bubblegum flower, and the numbers are incredible: the THC came in at 44.9%, and the CBG came in at 3.1%. At this point, especially if you’re a regular reader of marijuana blogs, you’re probably bored to tears when it comes to information on cannabinoids like THC and CBD because it’s ubiquitous, however, CBG is an up-and-coming cannabinoid you should pay attention to—this odd little chemical is actually the parent of both THC and CBD, it’s thought to have anti-inflammatory properties, and it might even be a neuro-protectant (smoking high-CBG concentrates might actually protect your brain, despite what your mother told you).

However, just like I said in last week’s post, the numbers don’t matter much, nor does the science—it’s the experience that counts: our kief is incredible, and I’m pretty sure this is the stuff Tinkerbell sprinkled on the Lost Boys to make them fly. And smoking kief is like eating the frosting first and leaving the cake behind, because you’re smoking the trichomes without the sticks and stems you’re used to. It’s flavorful and rich, and the smoke expands in your lungs, like a genie trying to get out of his claustrophobic lamp. The high is complex and long-lasting, with warm body notes and a cerebral giddiness that seems way too intense for something that costs only thirty bucks per gram.

But it’s the flavor that’s remarkable.

All the terpenes for which marijuana is famous are found in the trichomes—these terpenes are what give marijuana its smell and taste, and when you’re smoking pure trichomes, the flavor is multiplied exponentially. You can taste all the fruit and citrus and pine notes as if they were highlighted by a big marker, and all the subtle nuances that were hinted at before in plain flower stand out in kief like the stars they truly are. And this stuff smells exactly like it tastes: pungent, like intoxicating potpourri.

Actually, you just need to see it for yourself. You need to smell this stuff in person. You need to smoke it and sit back, and experience if it’ll make you feel stronger than one-hundred camels in the courtyard. So please, come in to The Greenery and ask one of our budtenders to show you our kief; this stuff is just as good as it sounds, and we’ll share it too, because that’s what Your Best Buds are for.

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Moroccan Hash in Durango

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The Berbers are a people of ancient Arab stock—they’ve lived in the mountainous Rif region of Morocco for as long as records have been kept. Their eyes and hair are deep brown, their traditions are exotic, and they paint their houses and streets blue to mirror the sky, to be reminded always of a god living above. And they make hashish, just as they always have, because it’s a part of Moroccan life.

In the Rif, the soil is red and rich, and the air smells salty because the Mediterranean Sea starts where the mountains end. And hidden in the highlands are terraced hills covered with flowering marijuana. The Berber men tend their crop until it’s time to harvest, and then they reap their fields the way their fathers taught them to. The harvested marijuana is set aside to cure for a month, and then the flower is trimmed from the stalk. The green bud is ground gently, and then placed on a silk drum—the silk acts as a filter: the pollen falls through while the plant matter stays trapped on the surface. The Berber men cover the flower with a tarp, and then start beating on it rhythmically with bamboo canes; they call this “making music.” When the hash-song is done, the men uncover the beaten flower and throw it away. They take the silk head from the drum and look inside; the brittle trichomes that filtered through the silk sit in the drum’s bottom. Light brown, pungent, intoxicating.

The men press the powdery hash by hand, heating and kneading it gently, and they smile as their Moroccan hash darkens. They roll it into balls, keeping the best for themselves, and then they send their hash out into the world; these Berber men make half the world’s supply. But oddly enough, marijuana is illegal in Morocco. Lenience is given to the Berber tribes because it’s easier than policing them, but once their hash leaves the mountains like snowmelt flowing downhill, it loses its protection. It’s coveted and fought over just like anything else that makes you feel good, and it’s always been ridiculously hard to come by in the States. I’ve only had authentic Moroccan hash twice in my life—I could tell by the tribal stamp pressed into the bricks I bought—and I didn’t want to think too much about how I got what I got, because most of this hash is smuggled out of Morocco in a very… personal way. But each time I smoked it, I loved the feeling Moroccan Hash gave me, and after each time I ran out, my smile turned upside-down.

But that’s over: now, The Greenery Hash Factory is making their own Moroccan Hash, and we’re selling it at The Greenery for thirty-five bucks a gram. And the craziest part is that the stuff we’re making is better than the stuff I’ve smoked before; maybe we should call it “Durangan Hash” and smuggle it into Morocco so they can see what they’ve been doing wrong for centuries. For one, we use the best marijuana in Colorado to make our hash—our cannabis is grown in a controlled environment with living soil by a badass Master Grower, not out in the wind and rain of a Moroccan mountainside (and we don’t have to worry about goats eating our pot, which is nice).

Secondly, we use modern technology to make our “music”; quality control is much easier to achieve when you’re using a dry-sift machine instead of bamboo canes. And when you do everything scientifically, from using an exact heat to caramelize the hash to testing the hash in a modern laboratory, you end up with a superior product. Our most recent batch of Moroccan Hash is simply awesome: we made it from Skunk #1 flower, and the THC came in at 65%, the CBD came in at 1.3%, and the CBN came in at 2.3%. Today, when most marijuana concentrates are made using a chemical extraction process, these numbers are exciting because we did it the old-school way, naturally.

But in the end, it’s the experience that counts, not the numbers or the three-letter-acronyms, and I swear to you that to smoke our hash is to know perfection. The flavor is deep and musky, like a velvety dark chocolate or a fragrant black tea. The high is focused and intense, with profound relaxation and a centered calm. It’s the high I’ve been looking for through the years since I held those tribal-stamped bricks of the real deal, but taken to another level in the hands of our hash craftsmen. So, come in to our dispensary and ask one of our affable budtenders to show you what I’m talking about; you can smell it and see it for yourself. From now on, we’re offering this Moroccan Hash to Durango and our neighbors because it’s just better than what has been offered before—that’s what you’ve come to expect from Your Best Buds, and that’s what you’ll get if you try our house-made Moroccan Hash.

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