It’s 2018, the first few months of legal weed in So Cal, and branding and presentation has become all-important for weed business entrepreneurs. Just getting people high won’t cut it anymore – companies have to offer something unique. The Rooster disposable vape pen, from OMG Farms in Humboldt County, turned out to be one of the more interesting products we encountered at last week’s 420 Games, and we spent the better part of this week experimenting with one.
If the conventional hash oil vape cartridge is already a model of convenience compared to smoking regular old pot – nothing to fill, no lighter, no cloud of reefer scent lingering around the user – then the Rooster represents another step forward. With this, there’s no battery, no charger, no button – just pick it up and puff like an old-fashioned e-cigarette from 7-11. You can’t leave it on by accident or forget to charge it. And from any distance at all, it has the look of a regular old e-cig, not the unmistakable look of a hash oil vape.
The air flow and delivery on this device were first rate, from the time I opened it to the final hit. OMG’s cannabis oil blend is not strain specific, described simply as a Hybrid “with the benefits of both sativa and indica.” Fair enough! I don’t mind embracing the moment and using the finest herb that can be sourced, whatever its name is.
The flavor is primarily sweet honey with a pleasant herbal finish, soft on the throat. The benefit of CO2 oil over butane derivative is not just health-food-store mumbo jumbo – you can take and hold in more of the concentrate when your lungs are not being chemically burned.
All that’s well and good, I hear you cry, but what about the head? To test the experience, I brought out the big guns – one glazed ham, on sale after Easter, a tray of scalloped potatoes, and the album Dopesmoker by Sleep, a 45-minute song about ancient Jerusalem. The Rooster allowed me to get to a state of pretty-fucking-high within the first three minutes of the piece, and with an occasional warm-up hit, remain glued to the couch for the duration.
The hybrid nature of the hash oil allowed my mind to explore the myriad interpretations of the Biblical story of Christ, while involuntarily moving my body to throw devil horns at the epic riffs unfolding. The combination of the ham and potatoes kept this process from unfolding too rapidly, and also was really delicious.
As with all heavy duty concentrates, it is possible to build up a tolerance to this device quickly. I would recommend alternating its use with some good quality flower to avoid burning out your interior lights. But for those occasions when you need to discreetly get rip roaring stoned in a hurry, this little thing will get you there as quickly and easily as seems possible to do.
Final rating: 36 out of 39 lashes, from that other piece of rock music about ancient Jerusalem.
****
During my commentary on last week’s 420 Games, I may have made some unkind, sarcastic comments about so-called Lifestyle Marketing where cannabis is concerned. I should point out that I do recognize that people need to feed their families and run a business, and that takes money and that takes marketing. Some people have more money than taste, and are willing to pay for a curated lifestyle. Who am I to stand in the way of money? It’s a capitalist country after all. I grew up in the Good Old Days of Oppression, where you could get busted by the pigs just for telling somebody what park to go to buy some herb, so I’d much rather we have lifestyle curation available.
I just find it funny as hell, probably because I’m high on the product grown by this industry, so kindly cut me a break.
