Jólabókaflóð, or “Christmas/Yule Book Flood,” is an Icelandic holiday tradition comprising exchanging books with friends and loved ones on Christmas Eve, then spending the evening reading them aloud to one another, often while gathered in front of a cozy fireplace, or curled up in bed with a partner, and perhaps some chocolate. The Icelandic tradition of exchanging books on Christmas Eve, and then spending the evening reading, is worth importing and incorporating into the holiday season. In the spirit of the Jólabókaflóð (phonetically pronounced yo-la-bok-a-flot) tradition, the following are some selections for the cannabis curious on Christmas Eve.
Aster Farms’ Unique Terroir Emerges from the Ashes in Wine Country
I’m fortunate to have real farming in my blood from growing up on my family’s Demeter / Bio-dynamic / Organic / Gentleman’s farm in Morris Township, New Jersey. The idea and concept of using soil as an extension of the interactive, living earth with the planets above, pulling the entire thing together in a cohesive and forthright manner, is very personal to me— even though my part in the whole thing was very limited. But the concept of farming cannabis attracts my attention because it’s real. Farming, whatever you are growing is massively hard work. There’s no sleeping-in “because I’m tired” days. No days off. While growing up, my responsibility was to care for a working stable with very demanding horses. Horses eat 24/7. Their stalls need to be cleaned constantly, it’s just what you do. That was my job. School was part of the story, too. It wasn’t easy for me, far from. There’s always a job to do on a farm.
I discovered BAE Vapes through one of the many cannabis PR groups that find my writing beguiling enough to share with their clients. In this case, the overall effect is not destruction, but wellness. The design is clean and fresh, the colors are feminine and crisp. The oils are extracted using the finest organically grown, Clean Cannabis available. And then, if this is not already a win/win, the design of the delivery system is painted cool and attractive colors such as pink and white. These are intimate products that fit in a woman’s purse or clutch as comfortably as a compact or eyeliner. Not your brother’s ‘get high quick’ (510 cartridge) nor your dad’s method of grabbing a bong to get ripped. This is elegance and style, class and comfortable, calculated results. I’m proud to call this product, something different. Because what is going on here is not like anything I’ve experienced on the market. Yes, it’s that good. Tasty too! Why?
Bayflower Cannabis Company: Be Free
Covering cannabis at the top of the line in quality, and all within the journalistic side of the cannabis business has certainly opened my taste-buds to a broad array of flavors and ‘terroir’ that I thought only existed in the wine world. It’s truly eye-opening to imagine all that time that I spent tasting fine wine growing up, only to discover in later years a much broader array of flavors like wine, inherent to cannabis. I discovered many similar attributes to fine wine, and vice-versa. Descriptors such as crushed minerals, fruit salad, pine forest, sap, salt-slicked could all mean different impressions of fine wine from around the globe. Now imagine taking those same and even more descriptive language when it comes to cannabis tasting notes. Such as the new catch phrase, terpenes. Imagine my delight to fall into a series of samples from Bayflower in San Francisco. Not that I was in San Francisco, (I wasn’t), but close enough in Eureka (a few hours up the coast), is where I experienced their own unique terroir; quite literally, the taste of the place. Here I had in at my disposal some of the most gorgeous locally grown, (legally, of course) cannabis. And suddenly as if by osmosis I had several lovely new samples from Bayflower! Wonderful! Thank you!
Perhaps it was the Lemon Tree strain of Cannabis from the California Bud Company seducing me at that very moment, with her hauntingly woodsy, citrus tinged aromatics, further scintillating inhalations, each one offering deep rips of iChing level intellectualism, the experience leaving a perfumed moment in your heart that is deeply mesmerizing. Each subsequent puff offering hints of cedar wood, dripping with raw honey and crushed fall leaves and more sweet and spicy citrus oil that coats your lips and tongue. Coming into view are scents of the very tips of young pine needles as you brush up against them. Their Douglas fir scented sticky oils, releasing their perfume all over your shoes and socks, while being gently crushed under foot. Yes that is what enticed me to share their deep success and their utter excellence, thank you all for making it so and placing those memories into my brain. It’s made my food journalism even more satisfying.
WE MADE IT TO FORBES!
…And it’s a love letter to the Bull Run Lifestyle.
In a land far away in New York City, where people are awoken by car horns, have their clothes professionally cleaned and check the DOW industrial average while brushing their teeth, they dream of a simpler life. To them, the Oregon lifestyle is a fairy tale. The sap that comes from our trees is a thick and vibrant viscoses that courses through the veins of our forests, gushing with life. Our air is crisp and clean, with the soft, rustling sounds of leaves and animals rolling in the gentle breeze, and everything that is grown and cared for is nurtured by the love and light that keeps our land going. And, according to Forbes writer Warren Bobrow, our cannagars capture it all.
While some people recovering from substance abuse do best with a zero-tolerance policy regarding any intoxicant, others are able to safely use cannabis. I’m one such person, and my life is all the better for it.
“If you smoke a joint in public, everyone knows your business,” Bobrow says. “But not if you are sipping a gorgeous Vietnamese Iced Coffee with THC-infused condensed milk on a steaming hot day, watching your coconut water ice melt slowly into the unctuous concoction. Do I have you here?” While the world has become a friendlier place towards cannabis users since Giuliani was mayor, yes, he did have me there.
Above, mixologist Warren Bobrow
If you only knew how many ultra-high-end vaporizers I’ve received (thank you) to test over the last months. It’s a little overwhelming quite frankly to have so much high-priced technology at my disposal when a simple stonedware pipe and a supply of hemp cordage is usually my go/to. But in the deepening cavern that is my equipment closet and the utter mass of so much expensive technology that graces my home, one of the most impressively designed ones, at least from a pure design standpoint is the VapeXhale Cloud EVO Vaporizer. It’s a lot of words to name a hardly inconspicuous machine, that is if you don’t place the expansive and expensive-looking glass rig on board. Then you’d just have the plug-in base and that’s only part of the overall fun!
I’m fortunate in this journalism world to be able to find interesting and intellectually driven people who work within the cannabis space. Entrepreneurs who are every bit as nerdy and metric driven as myself, with myself, less metric driven. Just one of those things when you’re comfortable being different than the norm. Cannabis attracts all sorts of intriguing people and Darren Gacicia is definitely up there with the entrepreneurial minded. I came across Darren in a circuitous manner. His PR for the Garden of Eden line of exceptionally high quality cannabis oil products had contacted me on a different project. She saw my manner of interviewing, it is somewhat different than the other kinds that are out there, that is for certain, and we pushed forward on this discussion. The questions followed along with phone time. But what I really was intrigued about was the fact that Darren grew up in the near proximity to myself, and he went to prep school at the other prep school in my town- for boys; The Delbarton School. Which I grew up, directly next door to, thus my deeper interest in Darren’s deep success and especially that he graduated from an extremely conservative, Catholic, Private Boys School. The only other people who I knew at Delbarton, were my cousins (not Catholic) and a handful of others over my Morristown-Beard years in the 1970’s. I really hadn’t thought about Delbarton much in some time and this nerdy factoid certainly caught my attention! Without further interruption, may I introduce to you, someone who is obviously doing exactly what he loves in life. I cannot find anyone more passionate than Darren Gacicia, obviously doing what he loves in the cannabis industry. Hard working too. No one gets to be a financial go/to for a capitalized corporation without being just a bit more than smart.