America’s hottest pot for 420 ’22
America’s tens of millions of weed lovers celebrating 420 this April have the most spectacular show on Earth awaiting them. At legal cannabis dispensaries from California to Massachusetts, the world’s top breeders and growers have put their best buds forward. New drops of the prettiest, stankiest, strongest pot ever conceived blanket the land.
Just like wearing the freshest fit to the NBA Finals, or the latest Dior to the Grammy Awards, you’ll want to bring some proper zaza to your 420 sessions. Leafly interviewed several keepers of the cannabis flame—Seed Junky Genetics’ J Beezy; Alien Labs; Capulator; Phat Panda; even Cheech frickin’ Marin of Cheech and Chong—to spot the hottest flower of 420 ‘22 across the US. Let’s effin’ go.
Animal Face
In the concrete jungle of Los Angeles, the epicenter of global cannabis culture, top dog Seed Junky Genetics not only breeds badass exotics, but grows and sells them, too. Seed Junky’s CEO J Beezy recommends his strain Animal Face for 420 in 2022.
“It has a functional high that is nice to get the day started with, or great for a workout. It’s a solid morning smoke with a great motivational effect. Creative high,” said J Beezy.
Animal Face’s parents are the infamous Face Off OG and the hype Animal Mints. “Animal Face is a huge yielding plant with both color and flavor which appeals to the new school. It has a good structure and it stretches a lot while remaining full; it’s always the biggest plant in the room,” J Beezy told Leafly.
Those attributes mean a ton of Animal Face on shelves from multiple growers, in many stores, and delivery services.
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While the rest of us celebrate, J Beezy stays on his legendary grind this 420.
“I think it’s another day in the flower room, but we still celebrate and smoke a little extra. We also like to use it as an opportunity to give back to the customers and give great deals,” he said.
MAC 1
Keeping it proudly LA-made for a second, breeder Capulator recommends his unstoppable, award-winning MAC 1, grown by brand L.A. Made, for 420 this year. He’s planning a drop of CAP-approved MAC at Peace of Green on East Pico Blvd. in LA.
Since 2015, MAC 1 has floored aficionados with its bling, size, density, complex flavor, and heavy effects. This crazy hybrid of Alien Cookies f2 x Miracle 15 can smell like sour black cherry yogurt.
The taste? Multi-faceted—sweet, sour, piney, gassy, and hashy. Cap tells Leafly that MAC 1 is an “uplifting, happy high that keeps you soaring through the day. Easy come down to munchies and naps. Creative and chatty vibes. Great medical strain for anxiety and depression.”
It also pairs well with “immersing yourself in nature,” he says. But that dude has an insane tolerance. Go slow, if you’ve never driven a big rig.
Jealousy
Leafly called Jealousy a “Buzz” strain to watch in 2022, and it’s proving true. Craft indoor flower brand LitHouse has excellent examples of this cookies-type cultivar available statewide for 420.
Many other brands also crush this Seed Junky selection of Sherbert Bx1 x Gelato 41. Our jar had a complex creamy, berry, cookie, sweet, and hoppy smell—like the first real GSC nugs at The Hemp Center, San Francisco in, like, 2012.
Reviewers conclude it’s good for mood—uplifting yet melty, giggly, and arousing. So pair it with a lot of other stuff you like to do.
Gelato haters gonna hate. But they remain jealous.
Chemdog
Cheech and Chong have their own legal cannabis delivery service, Cheech and Chong’s Takeout, that’ll drop off an eighth of Tommy Chong’s Cannabis brand Chemdawg Reserve at your house. Far. Out. Man.
What a journey—from that silly van made of weed in Up in Smoke to ordering Chem for legal delivery from Cheech & Chong. It’s the perfect example of how mainstream weed has always been, Marin told Leafly in a February phone call.
“… there is not a segment of society that marijuana does not enter and be a part of; not any segment.”
Cheech Marin, comedian, actor, curator
“We always used to say, even at the height of fame, ‘We are middle-of-the-road dopers, you just don’t know what middle of the road is.’ We were middle-of-the-road. We are middle-of-the-road dopers, and there is not a segment of society that marijuana does not enter and be a part of; not any segment.”
Chemdog emerged from a fateful Grateful Dead concert deal, but the breeder is unknown. It powers GMO Cookies, which in turn fuels a lot of hype weed these days.
You’re stoking the hot coals of modern fuego when you burn some classic Chemdog. It smells chemmy, astringent, biting, and savory, and hits strong with high-THC and energy, ready to put in the work.
Gemini
We test a lot of cannabis, but Alien Lab’s Gemini shines as our current ‘desert island strain of 2022.’ Maroon us on alien Planet 4546b with a pound of this stuff, and we’ll be good.
The latest drop from Alien Labs is also founder Ted Lidie’s pick for 420, and the excitement is founded. Bred, grown, and sold for Alien Labs, Gemini crosses 2Face OG to Area 41 and looks perfect, with a wonderfully complex, earthy, aggressive OG funk.
It tastes gassy, dank, and sweet with a candied grape “dust” flavor. Apple Fritter fans—get ready for blissful abduction. You get a stratospheric, energetic high that goes great with gaming. And you can spot it on top shelves in stores and courier menus across California.
R*ntz 33
Throwing five on it isn’t going to cut it for the high holiday. Instead, show up with something both familiar and exotic: R*ntz 33.
Crossing fan favorite Runtz with the classic creamy profile of Gelato 33 might sound pedestrian. But, like Neapolitan ice cream, mashing up these classics becomes something that stands out in a sea of flavors, even in a saturated market like Oregon.
Credit to its breeder, One Eye, renowned for his palate-shattering terpene profiles with strains like Dogwalker. Fidus Family Farms does this flower justice with their soil-grown, tea-fed, and hand-watered regiment.
The flavor is maximal and the chunky buds are colorful and dense, ideal for impressing at the sesh. Just make sure the circle gets to ooh and ahh at these glittery nugs before they take a spin in the grinder.
Fortissimo
Need that loud sack? Fortissimo, musical jargon for “played loudly” doesn’t quite describe the volume of this funky siren’s song.
This clone-only cultivar, bred in Colorado by Green Dot Labs, combines a formidable Chem D cross, Crescendo, and the funk-forward Han Solo Burger to create what Green Dot calls the loudest in their catalog.
Oregon-based Gnome Grown coaxes out eye-watering aromas in their greenhouse gardens, with the sun and full-term flowering period accentuating the deafening, diesel-rich scent of this powerhouse.
Merely cracking the jar at the 420 sesh will make quick friends. The result? A profile loud enough to cause tinnitus or at least drown out your new buddy telling his gravity bong story for the third time.
Trophy Wife
Up in Washington, award-winning commercial grower Phat Panda recommends their in-house Triangle Mints F2 Trophy Wife for 420 in 2022. Sounds like a keeper to us.
The original Triangle Mints comes from Seed Junky’s marriage of the influential, fuel-rich Triangle Kush to the hype flavor of Animal Mints, a relative of Wedding Cake. Phat Panda selected two perfect Triangle Mints kids and bred them together—called an F2—for Washington smokers.
“Trophy Wife is our personal selection of the F2 from Seed Junky and yes we named it ‘Trophy Wife,’” Katrina McKinley, CEO of GrowOpFarms tells Leafly. With genes from T.K. and Animal Mints, it’s going to smell and taste awesome—piney, gassy, cookie, and mint. It’s also going to be really high in THC and pair with kicking back and relaxing, especially with that extra special someone.
Pineapple Pancakes
Let’s get tropical. Award-winning grower and seller Fire Bros of Washington want you to wake and bake this April with their custom sativa hybrid, Pineapple Pancakes. They’ve got about 75 pounds of it going around the state this month.
Pineapple Pancakes comes from Fire Bros’ frisky Pineapple Super Silver Haze, which accidentally pollinated some of their Blueberry Pancakes. The result: sativa-looking buds that smell like freshly cut and perfectly ripened pineapple.
Fire Bros says they taste “like a pineapple smoothie on the beaches of the Yucatan peninsula, just as the sun is just starting to set.” Potent and syrupy sweet, Fire Bros recommends it for, “Bear wrestling, cliff diving, and watercolor painting. This strain is gonna get you energized and ready to tackle any of life’s obstacles. To-do lists beware!!”
Kitchen Sink
Over in Colorado, top-shelf terp farmers Hava Gardens have a strain that’s everything: Kitchen Sink. Notes of mint, menthol, soft vanilla bean, and balsam waft off this gorgeous cross of Sundae Driver x GMO Cookies.
Hava Gardens cures its indoor, soil-grown flower slowly in cool temperatures to preserve layers of flavors from harvest to stash jar. Colorado breeding boss Cannarado created Kitchen Sink and Dark Horse Genetics selected this cut—which means it’ll have some of the highest-THC effects in The Rockies and beyond.
Kitchen Sink’s effects hit creative and uplifting at first, then eye-drooping and couch-locking. The mature legalization state of Colorado likes its flower strong and on-trend. Hava Gardens’ award-winning growers oblige.
Red Runtz
In 2022, legalization allows cutting-edge West Coast cannabis flavors and genes to jump directly over to the East Coast. This April, Massachusetts smokers finally get a seat at the mountaintop with Theory Wellness’ debut of six current Exotic Genetix strains, vetted by Exotic Genetix’s Mike himself.
“I’ve been waiting a long time to bring my genetics to the East Coast, and who better to curate them than Theory,” Mike said in a statement. “Whether it be through their state-of-the-art facility or meticulous operations, this is the perfect place for the East Coast journey to begin.”
The flower sells out as fast as staff stocks it, but we’d brave the cold Boston spring to score some Red Runtz this month. Exotic Genetix mixed Red Pop with the Leafly Strain of the Year 2020, Runtz for a gorgeous flavor bomb of sweet, berry, woody, and tropical citrus. It should yield hybrid indica, sky-high-THC effects that’ll go great with lean-back activities like movie marathons or spinning vinyl.
Starbelly
Coming out of the pandemic, Las Vegas has fully folded legal weed into its repertoire of epicurean offerings. Tons of tourists will gravitate to System Of A Down bassist Shavo Odadjian’s weed brand 22Red.
For April, 22Red has some classic hybrid flavors to go with your retro Fear and Loathing trip. We’d enjoy floating around a lazy river on Starbelly—an old-school cross of Grape Ape x Strawberry Cough with a flavor-licious, fruit-forward grape and strawberry nose.
The 50-50 hybrid effects stay versatile, in case you want to play a few hands of Hold ‘Em. 22Red Starbelly grew in the sun, so you can pass those cost savings straight along to the one-armed bandit. Damn, those slot machines!
Biscotti
We end for now in the blossoming medical state of Oklahoma—or more like Smokelahoma, thanks to its liberal cannabis rules. We’re still getting a handle on all the good smoke in the Midwest, but we’d start with some Tradecraft Farms Biscotti at $155 per ounce. Yee-haw!
Biscotti is a Cookie Fam release of Gelato #25 x Girl Scout Cookies x Florida OG. Grown and sold by Tradecraft Farms, it’s dank, sweet, complex, and scrumptious.
Tradecraft drops about 500 lbs. per month between the California and Oklahoma markets—all indoor hydroponic. They’ve been growing in Oklahoma for four years, with five self-named retail shops, and their stock in many more stores.
We gotta wrap it up, but that’s a lot of good pot. And we didn’t even fit in Michigan.
To conclude, we’d proudly blaze any of these flavors with you; guarantee we’d both really enjoy it.
As always, the hottest 420 tree remains the one in your bowl. For more guaranteed flame near you, see our ‘See Also’ list below.
See also: Super-shoppable strains of 420 ‘22
Splurge on clout cultivars. But then stock up on mainstream workhorse strains. Shop these nine highly available, affordable flavors of 4/20.
Oregon freelance journalist Ryan Herron contributed to this post.
What’s your go-to smoke for 420 this year? Leave a nice comment below.
David Downs
David Downs directs news and lifestyle coverage as the California Bureau Chief for Leafly.com. He’s written for WIRED, Rolling Stone and Billboard, and is the former cannabis editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as the author of several cannabis books including ‘Marijuana Harvest’ by Ed Rosenthal and David Downs. He co-hosts The Hash podcast. TW: @davidrdowns | IG @daviddowns
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