Strains heavy on fuel notes – NYC Sour Diesel, Chem Dog, and their progeny – powered the old-school underground market and still lurk on adult-use dispensary menus.
Cannabis legalization in New York City means things are a little looser at the Astor Club, a cannabis speakeasy located somewhere on Manhattan’s Lower East Side .
Like everywhere else with millions of people and an enormous appetite for cannabis, New York City’s market for marijuana is measured in the billions of dollars.
And there’s gas on the menu at Astor Club: a couple of different cuts of Sour Diesel, plus a few more of Chem Dog, another strain with fuel-like notes and East Coast origins.
Cannabis plants produce terpenes in response to environmental conditions and stressors.
Maybe some insect or pest in the Afghan mountains didn’t like the piney, earthy cocktail of pinene, linalool, humulene and guaiol.
“Some of my most popular strains come from the gas terpene profile,” says Jessie Grundy, the founder and CEO of Oakland, California-based Peakz, a licensed distribution company active in Oklahoma and Arizona, as well as California.
However, as much as gas seems to trigger something in the human brain and body, the market is still moved by aesthetics.
Still, there’s something here.
How the national market will respond to New York’s entrance is still an open question.