The strains that Alien Labs made

Based in California Alien Labs has been selling premium flowers since the golden days of cannabis. I recently made a video call with the brand’s founder and CEO, Ted Lidie, to talk about their heritage and the products that helped make the company one of California’s most recognizable brands.

The history of Alien Labs

Alien Labs was founded by Ted Lidie of Redding, California. He came from a family of cannabis growers so it’s only natural that he grew right into it as a career. In 2008, Lidie moved from Redding to San Francisco. During this time, all cannabis sold in stores was in Ziploc bags with regular labels; However, he found that cookies, with their recognizable blue branded bags, were becoming increasingly popular. Lidie immediately realized that the future of cannabis would be in branding – not just growing great weed – and he wanted to be part of that growth. About this revelation, Lidie said, “I saw the writing on the wall that this is only one place, but soon it will be everywhere. That’s when I got the idea to start a cannabis brand. “

In 2013 he brought that idea back to Redding and founded Alien Labs. In 2017, after Lidie had built its reputation in the traditional market for years, Lidie entered the legal cannabis space through a partnership with Connected Cannabis Co. Now, in 2021, Alien Labs exists in both California and Arizona and is known for producing some of the highest quality flowers and most unique, never-before-seen varieties out there.

These are the strains that Alien Labs made.

2006-2011: March 1st floor

Of course, Lidie OG Kush moved in its prime. When the strain first hit the market, it quickly became one of the most sought-after strains of all time. Pretty much anyone who played a role in building California’s “traditional market” into the largest cannabis market in the world has OG Kush in their history.

For Lidie, Mars OG was the name he used to sell his version of the cannabis classic. “Before GSC, my friends grew this well-known cut of OG Kush. It didn’t have a name back then, it was just OG Kush. We’d take it to LA and call it Mars OG. Mars OG was really the first breed of Alien Labs, but that was before we were known as Alien Labs. “

Find Mars AND tribes

2010-2013: GSC, animal biscuits

After OG Kush came GSC (formerly Girl Scout Cookies), the strain that brought the Cookies brand into the spotlight. It was the seed that made cookies a household name in cannabis culture. Just like with OG Kush, people would get GSC and name it differently to add even more to its mystique.

“I moved back to Redding 5-6 years [after moving to San Francisco]. I was able to get GSC before people had access to this cut. I gave it to some of my friends; I grew it myself; And all the weed that came out, I went down to Sacramento [Los Angeles], [San Francisco], and sell it as Alien Labs. “

For Lidie and Alien Labs, Cookies’ version was Animal Cookies. Back then it was just a renamed cut of the already famous variety. Nowadays, Animal Cookies is a cross between Fire OG and GSC.

Find GSC Strains

Find varieties of Animal Cookies

2013-2014: Do-Si-Dos

Between 2013 and 2014, Alien Labs started bubbling as an underground brand. Lidie blessed Redding with the most coveted weed of all time, in a quality the city had never seen before. The strain that became a huge hit for them – and really put Alien Labs on the map – was Do-Si-Dos.

“If it wasn’t Cookies or OG Kush back then, nobody was really too excited about whatever it was. We found a really nice cut from Do-Si-Dos that tends towards the OG side. We put this out and people went crazy. That drove Archive Seed Bank into the stratosphere. We stopped growing the animal biscuits. “

Find Do-Si-Dos strains

2014-2016: Zookies

At the time, Alien Labs was known for growing other people’s strains. Zookies is one of the first to be bred in-house and that was completely coincidental. “She knows GSC. The animal biscuits brought out an entire warehouse with 18 lights from us. It pollinated GG4, Fire OG, and a few other things. We popped some seeds out of the GG4 and it became a strain called Zookies. “

Find zookies strains

2015-2016: wedding cake

During his run with Zookies, Alien Labs got one of the first cuts from Wedding Cake. At first the brand was like “No, it’s not that”, but out of curiosity the strain grew anyway.

If you grow or smoke weed in 2021, you’ll know exactly how popular this strain became. “We started selling to [TLC Collective]. The owner [Iván Vanorwick] gave us a piece of wedding cake that didn’t have the hype. Lots of people said no, Wedding Cake doesn’t have the terpenes you want. Then we brought it out and we thought, ‘This is very special.’ We were one of the reasons J Beezy became so popular, and Wedding Cake became so popular, because we could release that gas. “

Find wedding cake varieties

2017: Zkittlez

In 2017, Prop 64 had finally legalized adult cannabis in California, and it was time for Alien Labs to go legal. Although Lidie and the team were experts at growing cannabis, they didn’t have the resources to start a legal cannabis business in California. At that point, they partnered with Connected Cannabis Co., with whom they had worked for years. “When Prop 64 was passed, we had no way of getting licensed. We’re all just poor kids who knew how to grow weed. You make some trap money, but that shit didn’t mean anything when Prop 64 showed up. Connected Cannabis Co. said, ‘Hey, you should just come under our umbrella.’ ”

The partnership allowed Alien Labs to focus on the creative and product side of the business without operational stress. It also gave them the freedom to start working on Zkittlez before it exploded.

“After the wedding cake, we bought a piece of Zkittlez from [the Terp HogZ] for $ 20,000. When we came out with Zkittlez people were like oh these guys can kill strains because Zkittlez is known to be a very ugly plant. It has terpenes, but it lacks the appearance. “

To this day, Alien Labs is still paying the same price for this original Zkittlez cut.

Find Zkittlez varieties

2018-2019: Melonade, Area 41, Baklava, Sherbacio

After Alien Labs was legalized and legalized, they began breeding and publishing more of their own strains. The first was Melonade on December 17, 2018 at the Emerald Cup, although it was short-lived. “In May we have the very first legal High Times Cannabis Cup in [Sacramento]. We won the best indica flower [with Gelato #41], Best Sativa Flower [with Melonade], and Best Hybrid Flower [with Wedding Cake]. Before we even fell over [Melonade] we won the best sativa with it. Then people started copying it and I immediately took it off the menu. We had a drop of melonade on the legal market and that was it. “

After melonade came Area 41, Baklava and Sherbacio. To this day, Area 41 is still one of Alien Labs’ best-selling strains. “I’m sure we sold well over a million eighths of it.”

Find melonade varieties

Find Area 41 tribes

Find types of baklava

Look for Sherbacio varieties

2021: Biscanté

These days, Alien Labs are still giving off absolute heat. It has Lidie, Connected and everyone on those teams who think about innovation. That year the Biskanté brand launched, the first new variety in over 18 months. Going forward, Alien Labs will focus on bringing out its own internally grown strains rather than continuing to grow other breeders’ projects.

“We dropped Biskanté, a cross between melonade and biscotti, in May. We have some other nice varieties on the menu that have been bred by others, but in the future all of our stuff will be grown in-house. We attach great importance to this. Our grass is expensive, I know that. Given these costs, we simply want customers to have a new and unique experience every time they smoke our product. “

Look for biscuit varieties

Selected photos courtesy of Ted Lidie