My Favorite Strains: Chem Dawg #4

It’s Thursday night and you’re having some friends over to cook some dinner (Phad Thai, 3 stars) and smoke a hodgepodge of gifted strains (in lieu of wine or beer). It’s a lengthy process, the cooking. One person assumes the role of the dictator and chef, another acts the sous: dicing what needs dicing, sautéing vegetables and making sure every component of the meal is coming along in a timely fashion. The rest are assigned to prep tasks: working through the layers of the onion, contriving a way to pulverize a half pound of peanuts or manning the stove. Then you have your joint roller, the one who collects all of the donations (a Blue Dream, a SSH, an Afgoo, which you generously donated, and a Granddaddy Purp) and rolls coned joints intermittently, making sure that the joint is passed with equal opportunity and the banter never ceases.

After the third or fourth cone, you (the sous chef) check your watch and realize that you’ve doubled the allotted prep time and should have begun cooking an hour and a half ago. You pry yourself away from the table, where everyone has doffed their assumed hat for the night and embarked on a hilarious conversational journey that currently has you discussing the cinéma vérité of Eddy Grant’s Electric Avenue music video and eating the remaining peanuts. You wrangle the chef back into the kitchen, cut off the enthusiastic joint roller (for the time being, of course) and eventually the whole kitchen crew is back in action, yielding, which you will all agree on for years to come, the most delicious Phad Thai known to humankind. The food disappears and it grows late. Attendees phase out: first the couples and those who rode with, then those within walking distance, until you and one of your oldest friends (the joint roller), remain.

“One more?” he asks.

You nod but stop his hand as he reaches for his Blue Dream.

“Hold up.” You say.

You run upstairs into your room and rifle through your decompression tin, returning with a container marked Chem Dawg #4.

ChemDawg #4 Canopy

This very friend’s dad often said that you can tell your friendships by what caliber of scotch they provide you with, and vice versa. He then poured out some Grouse. Message received.

The same principle applies to strains. Blue Dream, Afgoo, Super Silver Haze, all are excellent strains with voluptuous characteristics, but Chem Dawg #4 is the Laphroaig Quarter Cask or Highland Park 18-year. The kind you share with your oldest friends who still see you as the seven-year-old kid with an unfortunate haircut.

#4 isn’t for the faint of heart. Kermit-green and Tony the Tiger frosty, the bud toys with the eyes and nose before it erupts over the palate. An indica-dominant hybrid, unlike the rest of the Chem line, the flavor dips into the Pinesol citrus and follows up with the jet fuel flavor that alerts the user that there might be a bit of a lift-off. The lift off occurs about five seconds later, so find a couch.

When it comes to production, the #4 is a grower and a shower. It’s a resilient strain that tends to yield a pleasant, bushy amount at the hand of a competent green thumb. Give it about 9 to 10 weeks flower time for best results.

After your second puff, you recline on the couch as the Joint Roller/oldest friend sends himself into a coughing fit. You smile with considerable effort and that same smile is plastered on your friend’s face when he recovers from the tiny bursts of coughing fits that signify the worst is over. All is calm.

Check out other posts from Weedist’s My Favorite Strains series!