Aspen OG (marijuana review)

Aspen’s world-famous mountain vistas draw tourists from all over, including celebrities. From luxury shopping to the Winter X Games, it is a Colorado town known for offering the best of everything.

Like Aspen, 303 Seeds has a reputation for quality. The Colorado seed breeding company is responsible for several regional favorites, including Bio-Diesel, Jet Fuel (G6) and Aspen OG.

A well-grown cut of Aspen OG is typically frosty and white — like the snow-capped peaks of Snowmass and Buttermilk in the middle of ski season. According to 303 Seeds, it is a cross between a San Fernando Valley OG Kush mother and Sour Cream father, both Chem Dawg descendants. The result of the cross is a sativa-dominant hybrid purported to be good for daytime pain relief and appetite stimulation. It’s also part of one of the first large 2015 outdoor harvests in Colorado’s recreational industry.

Aspen OG by the numbers: $8/gram at At Home Remedies, 4735 W. 38th Ave., Denver

When I first saw Aspen OG at the display counter for At Home Remedies, it was the same light shade of green I’d seen in previous cuts, but less frosty than I expected. Its familiar sour smell jumped out of the jar at me.

In the interest of full disclosure, I had helped the store procure the wholesale product from an outdoor farm in my work as a dispensary consultant. Having grown up smoking finely-tuned Colorado indoor bud, I was interested in trying a product of soil and sunlight.

When I got home and took a closer look at the product, I noticed most of the nugs were small and rather stemmy. I could tell it was machine trimmed — likely due to the volume of a massive harvest. The flower might have been too dry or the trim machine blades were not calibrated correctly, because the nugs were pretty beat-up. Based on the way the nug crumbled when pinched, I am going to assume the former. The trichome coverage was decent, but it wasn’t coated in the blanket of white that makes it a local favorite. It did have a very pungent, sour smell. I decided to save it for the coming weekend festivities.

***

It was game day. The Broncos and Packers were both undefeated coming out of a bye week. The Sunday Night Football matchup was bound to be one of the best of the season — two veteran quarterbacks battling the top two defenses in the league. After two dropoffs at the airport, with a business meeting squeezed in between, I was ready for some football.

I grabbed the jar and a clean pipe and headed down to meet some friends at a Broncos-Packers tailgate party in the vicinity of Sports Authority Field.

When I got to the private tailgate (not in the lots that surround the stadium), I was surprised to see that it was almost evenly split between Broncos fans in their orange and blue, and Packers fans clad in green and yellow. Most of the people were a couple beers deep already, but I really wanted to smoke. Simple truth: smoking pot in public is illegal — as is having an open container of alcohol in many situations.

I popped the top on the jar and loaded a bowl. Within ten seconds, three of the visiting Packers fans spun around, commenting about the strong smell. I laughed and asked whether they ever saw people smoke at Packers tailgates. (Of course not.)

I took a dry hit to get the flavor — fruitier than the initial smell. Then I took a puff, which I immediately felt in the back of my throat. The smoke was sour, with hints of cheese, and creamy on the exhale. I felt the exhale in the top of my nose and almost sneezed.

I immediately felt relaxed, and the perpetual ache in my right shoulder began to subside. Without the shoulder pain, I decided to step up to a game of bags (a.k.a. corn hole). The bowl may have relieved my pain, but it certainly didn’t help my coordination — I only scored two of our eight total points and our opponents wrecked us. I hung out at the tailgate for another hour or so and smoked a bowl while we bantered about football. Everyone else was ready to head into the game, so I helped them break down the tailgate and started to walk home.

I successfully passed by two cheap Mexican restaurants on Federal Boulevard before I finally acquiesced to the munchies. The Aspen OG high had crept up on me and I felt like I hadn’t eaten in days. I proceeded to order $30 worth of Mexican food and sat down to watch the start of the game. I barely made it through half of the three meals I had ambitiously ordered before I was so full that I couldn’t go on. I packed up the remaining food, called an Uber and headed home.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised with the Aspen OG. Like Zola’s epic Twitter story, at face value it appeared to be sub-par, but giving it an objective evaluation left me wanting more.