Hall of Flowers was the biggest cannabis show in nearly two years and producers were keen to show the rest of the industry what they were up to during lockdown.

Some would argue the big dogs did their thing when it came to flowers but without a doubt, you could hear screeching on the floor as new companies pulled chairs out to enter the best cannabis debate in California. One of the things solidifying this was being able to hold up the product against the rest of the room.

So while every killer wasn’t there – one can understand why you wouldn’t buy a booth if your pot sells itself – there were enough to set our barometers to grade the general pack.

The Heatest Heat

In no particular order, these are the booths with the spreads that really separated themselves from the pack.

Blueprint

Courtesy of Blueprint.

After a summer’s worth of launch hype, Blueprint made it clear where they stand in California’s elite cannabis sector. At their debut business show, they teamed up with one of the world’s top topical companies Carter’s Aromatherapy Designs to show off their amazing spread at the CAD booth. You might have missed it if you weren’t paying attention. Each jar was an adventure in its own right, but the Triple Lindy we ended up with was wildly exceptional. Keep an eye out for them hitting more California shelves after the strong showing last week.

UMMA

We’ve been following the work of the formerly low-key folks at UMMA in Santa Rosa since we first got word they were doing big pheno hunts of Compound Genetics gear and finding heat. The team is finally ready to brand their own lineup, and it was certainly a standout at Hall of Flowers. A lot of people will point to the Compound hype when they look at the lineup – hell, we love Apples and Bananas too. But make no mistake about it, their inhouse breeding work on Guavoisier is worthy of equal praise.

Terp Hogz/The Original Z

Tony Mendo talks shop at The Terp Hogz booth. Courtesy of Terp Hogz

The Terp Hogz were at it again. The terps were insane and you had to walk through arguably the craziest booth that felt like walking into a scoreboard. Only a few weeks removed from the launch of the Zeus pods, it proved to be one of the stars of the show for vapes. In addition to that, the ZMO indoor collab with Seven Leaves stood right there with the best weed in the whole show. Tony Mendo also let us dab some R&D terps that were stunning.

Connected/Alien Labs

Alien Labs new next generation packaging. Photo: Jimi Devine

Once again, Connected and Alien Labs were teamed up for their booth efforts, and once again it was arguably the star of the show. While many booths had heat, the teams of Connected and Alien Labs had a lot of it. Strains like Biskante and Gelonade easily made the top five in the show with the rest of the spread having a strong argument too.

Honorable Mentions

Once you got past the ultra-elite, there were plenty of great offerings. It’s fair to say many people put out their best spreads ever at Hall of Flowers.

Lithouse

Photo: Jimi Devine

The pot at lithouse has been good for a while, but the selections at Hall of Flowers raised the bar for the farm as a whole. The Dark Dosi smells like straight armpits and the Orange Daiquiri lived up to its name.

Cali X

Cali X was another company that had an exceptional Hall of Flowers premier. The Bischoff and Shortcake were both standouts. It’s also worth noting we ripped apart one of the prerolled hemp blunts and it was all bud and no shake. We love that.

Redwood Remedies

While we were familiar with Redwood Remedies’ past efforts, with respect, none of it ever looked like the Gummy Buns. The Biscotti x Grease Monkey pairing is one of the most unique things to hit our nose this year and one of the standout terpene profiles of Hall of Flowers without a doubt.

State Flower

State Flower pulled up in their DeLorean and was giving free trips back to 2010 with their Cherry AK. It was probably the best rendition of the strain we’ve seen in a decade and exploded out of the jar at us with a pungent funk that was previously the most popular weed ever to come out of Sacramento before all the killers started showing up at the end of the Prop. 215 era.

Buddy Buddy

Terpene profiles reminiscent of Maple Syrup weren’t really something I ever thought about until I opened a jar of Buddy Buddy’s Northern Nights. The name is perfect as it smells like it’s oozing out of a tree in Canada.

The post The Hall of Flowers Essential Heat List appeared first on LA Weekly.