I received a lot of Pez dispensers when I was a kid: Bugs Bunny, C-3PO, Scooby-Doo, Pikachu — you name it. While I later found out that my mom just bought the dispensers as an excuse to eat the candy that came with them, that didn’t dissuade me from trying out a strain inspired by Pez. A heavy, relaxing hybrid that tastes like candy sounded good on a recent dispensary visit, so I bought an eighth of Sour Pez, a special that day, without doing much inspection of the strain. The jury’s still out on whether that was a mistake or not.

People say that a sure sign of aging is that your hangovers get worse, but if you can battle through the pain and make it to work, that proves you’re still young at heart. They’re wrong: The real sign that you’re moving over the hill comes when you start preferring going out during the day to going out at night, when both your body and your mind have had it with the bar-room chumming, tequila shots and Taco Bell runs. Now you care more about raking leaves, finishing The Haunting of Hill House before social media spoils it, and enjoying a good meal.

If going hard at brunch now means buds instead of booze, you can get the best of both worlds from Mimosa, a sativa-leaning hybrid named after the favored Sunday cocktail. A child of Clementine and Purple Punch, Mimosa is a strain new to the Mile High that’s gotten off to a quick start. It appeared on several best-newcomer lists this year, including our own, and can be found at a handful of dispensaries around Denver despite not having shown up until 2017.

My birthday is coming up, but I won’t be asking for cake. I’m a pie guy and always have been. Yet despite my affinity for pies, I’ve never come across a grape pie. Growing up, I saw purple filling in cartoon pies, but those were always filled with blackberries…weren’t they?

Turns out Concord grape pies are actually a thing, baked mostly in western New York and parts of Pennsylvania during harvest season. But in progressive Denver, Grape Pie bakes you.

Fun fact: You can never have too much Sour Diesel. Don’t believe me? You’re about to read the word “diesel” so often that you’ll swear you were wearing a trucker hat.

I’m not saying you can never smoke too much weed — smoking is still bad, mmkay? — but if I had to puff one strain for the rest of my life, Sour Diesel would be a strong candidate. The popular sativa’s lasting, uplifting high and rubbery stank make it an easy choice for the novice and experienced alike, so naturally, the Diesel family tree has branched out to create to a number of different strains. But how many of them carry the genetics of three Diesels in one?

Like many other cannabis writers, I routinely express my interest in and love of terpenes, the compounds found in cannabis and other plants that are responsible for a plant’s (or strain’s) smell and flavor. Cannabis has them, hops have them, lavender has them, citrus fruits have them…see the connection? One of the most common and popular cannabis and hop terpenes, myrcene, is also relatively abundant in mangos. The high myrcene levels in both pot and mangos has made some cannabis consumers swear that eating the fruit after smoking enhances their high, while myrcene has also shown potential for aiding with pain relief and muscle relaxation when paired with THC. So give it up for mangos, fellow tokers. They’re here to help — with the munchies, at the very least.
So where are all the mango-named strains?

Dozens, if not hundreds, of strains carry the sweet, tangy flavor of mangos, yet only a few strains bear the fruit’s name. So I was happy to see a local pot shop carrying Mango Kush, one of the few established mango-inspired strains I could find, along with Mango and Mango Haze.