** This order was received for free, keep walking if that's an issue for you. This does not affect any of the ratings or opinions in this review, as usual. **

MOM Name Kootenay Craft

Overall rating out of 10: 7.5/10

Sign Up: I have been registered for a while now, it was an easy process but they took long enough to accept my account once created. They now have a medial ID requirement on the form, but I've been told you can pretty much attach whatever pic there, so long as you have a decent enough ID submitted to prove your age.

Ordering & Pricing: A few months back, the Kootenay guys offered me a complimentary OZ for helping them with several website and customer service issues. At that time I was a moderator on here and opted to refuse the offer, not wanting to cause any unnecessary drama or baseless accusations due to my position. When the recent strain release happened, since I'm not in as a sensitive position, I figured I'd take them up on it. They accepted to send an OZ for review. I actually simply placed the order via email without going through the site and randomly selected among the new strains.

Communication: All my emails and questions were answered in a timely manner and the communication was good. They were a bit slow to send the tracking, but I didn't pressure them, figured since it's free, I wasn't in any rush

Packaging: The usual plastic jars that people either love or hate, vacuum sealed into a bag, which was in a bubble mailer. They now have a foam "seal" on the containers that they didn't have before, insuring a perfectly air tight seal. Nice little touch. Once opened though the foam is kind of annoying and has a lot of static, trichs and weed stick to it like crazy. Nothing dramatic, but worth xfering to proper glass jars. The seal doesn't seem optimal if left as is, my wardrobe where I store my shit is stinky right now, lol.

Products / Photos:

Black Domina: Very nice nose on that one, but rather faint. The buds are nice, not huge but decent sized, well trimmed, seemed a tiny bit dryer than I'm used to from KC. Breaking it apart, the faint nose is confirmed, it has a nice floral smell, but it's definitely not as loud as it could be. Even completely grounded, the smell wasn't really there. Smoking this wasn't all that pleasant, not much if any terps go through, the smoke isn't smooth but not too harsh either, just a pretty generic boring taste. Buzz was decent, but nothing amazing. It was my first Black Domina so I can't really judge on the strain accuracy, but I was told by others it's usually a heavy hitter, didn't feel that way to me. Nothing thrilling about this strain, giving it a 6/10.

Northern Lights #5 x Haze: Oh my, this screams old school! I hadn't had a NL or close relative in 20+ years and the nose immediately reminded me of the 90's, NL was a pretty common "mids" strain that was around back then. It's a nice piney smell, a bit sharp and spicy but with an hint of sweetness, very nice nose. Again it was a tiny bit dryer than what I like, seems like it might have been over-dried during the curing maybe. Big compact nugs, nice trim. Unfortunately, similar to the Black Domina, not much of the taste came through in a joint. It was smoother than the Black Domina, but not much fun to smoke despite all that. GIving it a 6.5/10.

Skunk #1: Now those who know me know I've been looking for some old school skunk forever and I have intensified my research lately. I actually asked just a few weeks ago to KC that they bug their growers for some skunk and they told me "Hey, we're getting some just now as a matter of fact". I knew Skunk #1 wasn't the strain I'm looking for, but getting skunk from the quality growers KC deals with gave me hope that it would at least be a nice drop. First off, that nose is pungent and gassy as hell, it is bar none the most pungent weed I've had from any MOM. My wife had me air the house out after rolling a joint. It's still not roadkill level, but this is definitely some legit skunk, zero hints of fruits or other shit, it's straight up skunky gas. As you can see from the pics (that's the whole quarter) it came as 2 very good looking buds of ~3.5g each. The cure and humidity is absolutely perfect, it's plush, fresh, real nice. Grinding this up released the fragrance and it was very pleasant to play with. Smoking this, I can say this is one of the most pleasant smoke I've had from any MOM. The terps come through hard, the smoke is creamy, extremely smooth (you can take huge rips and not not cough), very nice. My only complaint is that I rolled a pretty fat joint, was the first of my day and I didn't get much of a buzz out of smoking all of it. Skunk has never been a very heavy hitter, but this stands out as one of the weakest buzz I've had, reminds me of 1:1 CBD strains. Def a case of needing a little kick, be it with a bit of oil or hash. Giving this a 8.5/10, would have been a 9 if the potency was higher. I don't usually grade weed based on potency, but this is a special case.

Incentive for Customers: The usual 20% for 4+ quarters is a very nice feature of Kootenay,. They also have a new WELCOME2019 code which gives you 50$ on the first order (I don't think it works if you already used the older WELCOME code). Also, each month they have a 10% clearance sale, followed by a 15% strain release sale. Those do not stack with the 50$ welcome code, but they do stack with the 20% mix and match. Makes for pretty cheap OZ when all said and done.

Incentive for Review: Product was received for free for a review.

Notes: I had listed 4 strains and they only sent 3 of them. I didn't bother asking or mentioning, figured they were either out or messed up, either way it being free, no biggie. The missing strain was Mango Tango.

Overall, this wasn't my best order from them, but the skunk was a very nice find and I'll definitely be ordering more of it despite the potency issue. So satisfying to finally get that long lost taste

Sucks that you didn't get the Mango Tango but ehh beggers can't be choosers. What a wild welcome code. I haven't used it. I might have to...

Love the image of you airing out the house because of the skunk. Yep. Sounds skunky to me!

Ah man.. you almost found the skunk you’ve been looking for.

Vdubb wrote: Sat Feb 02, 2019 1:36 pm Ah man.. you almost found the skunk you’ve been looking for.

I'm still very happy about it, this stuff is amazing even if it's not quite "it"

i'm a bit ignorant: what is skunk? i'll google, but if you want to share, i'm happy to read. on another note, the weed at kc looks amazing and the sign-up is irresistible. being a bit of a newbie to weed, despite half a century of love, and to moms especially i like those sign-up deals, and there's still a bunch out there for me to avail myself of.

thinkbach wrote: Sat Feb 02, 2019 7:19 pm i'm a bit ignorant: what is skunk? i'll google, but if you want to share, i'm happy to read. on another note, the weed at kc looks amazing and the sign-up is irresistible. being a bit of a newbie to weed, despite half a century of love, and to moms especially i like those sign-up deals, and there's still a bunch out there for me to avail myself of.

Skunk is an old school strain that dates back to the 70's, derived from landrace strains. I'm no weed historian so I can't tell you what part of the world it comes from exactly, but basically it smells like skunk piss... not in a bad way though, if that makes sense. It's a bit like stinky cheese (food), it smells intense and borderline foul, but it tastes completely different. Back in the early 80's, a couple guy who had a hard on on that strain did some pheno hunting, selective breeding, crossing and basically managed to make an ultimate variation of that strain which was referred to as "Roadkill Skunk" because of how intense it smelled. Just to give you an idea how of strong that shit was, if you left a gram on a table in a dimebag for an hour and lived in an apartment building, your neighbors would be calling the landlord about the skunk in the building. It has, bar none, the strongest smell of any weed I've ever come across. It's the kind of weed that if you open a zip and put your nose in it, your body has a jerk reaction and pulls back.

This version here called Skunk #1 is a smoother smelling variation of it. It's still pungent as hell, but not crazy like the one I'm looking for.

Here's a good small read on it: https://cannabakebox.com/the-legend-of-skunk-bud/

I assume it's the strain everyone in my hometown was smoking because the town REEKED, I thought there was a severe skunk problem. Turns out everyone was just smoking weed... but I've never run into weed that smells so very skunky outside of my childhood/teen years when I was living rurally.

Keyll wrote: Sat Feb 02, 2019 8:09 pm I assume it's the strain everyone in my hometown was smoking because the town REEKED, I thought there was a severe skunk problem. Turns out everyone was just smoking weed... but I've never run into weed that smells so very skunky outside of my childhood/teen years when I was living rurally.

Yeah it was everywhere around here but when the bikers showed up and cornered the drug market, it started to get rare. At about the same time, the federal government introduced new legislation (their famous zero tolerance stance) that made growing weed subject to seizing the whole property it's grown on. This was the final nail in the coffin of that strain. Even carbon filters could control the stink, so it definitely wasn't something stealthy to grow.

A lot of peeps grew it outside in corn fields around here.... September/October was skunk festival every year It just slowly died off as bikers broke legs....

xsinx wrote: Sat Feb 02, 2019 8:17 pm A lot of peeps grew it outside in corn fields around here.... September/October was skunk festival every year It just slowly died off as bikers broke legs....

To be fair, I like my legs more than any strain. I'm positive that's what was happening, was people were just growing it tucked around larger plants (like corn) in their fields locally or in greenhouses, and that smell just wafted across the prairies. I didn't associate the change with the bikers, but come to think, yeah, it did seem to shift the market from being less locally grown mystery skunk and more hilariously dry seedy nonsense. Then I found MoMs and everything changed.

i always heard skunk used to just refer to weed in general, because of the typical smell. i sometimes smell skunk in the air, even to this day, then realize a few seconds later it's weed. but it's good to know it's a specific strain. i will investigate. love these old mythic strains, how they're still around, but evolved.

thinkbach wrote: Sat Feb 02, 2019 8:54 pm i always heard skunk used to just refer to weed in general, because of the typical smell. i sometimes smell skunk in the air, even to this day, then realize a few seconds later it's weed. but it's good to know it's a specific strain. i will investigate. love these old mythic strains, how they're still around, but evolved.

The truth is... I started smoking in about '89 but my father was a smoker so I was around weed for a long time before then. Back then, around here in Quebec anyway, weed was pretty rare and it was mostly import hash. Weed was either absolute shit outdoor (basically shwagg you wouldn't even be able to sell for 50$ an OZ nowadays) or super pungent skunk. We all called it "skunk" back then. There were occasional mids (Northern Lights, Freezeland) and a few very rare quads (GG4, Romulan to name a few)... but 95% of "good" weed was skunk.

I'd say about half of modern strains have skunk genetics in it's DNA, so the skunk smell is pretty widespread even in modern weed. It's hard to explain, but it's like an "aftersmell". For instance, I have a pretty good collection of strains here, none are skunky (except that new one), but my wardrobe smells like skunk nonetheless. I'm guessing the skunk terps are smaller molecules and actually seep through seals/bags/etc easier. You know, most weed smell can be contained by a baggie.. but this shit just goes through it like it's fabric, lol.

yeah, citroli hash, right? all i used to be able to get was the shittiest weed with seeds, and it gave me headaches. but that was pre-'82, because after that it was sobriety for me. still is, but past six years the joy of medicinal smoke has won the purity fight. i missed what happened after '83 in quebec. i did once participate in a plant of some sinse right around that time, which was what i missed for decades because it was so beautiful. smoked and ate that stuff for a month and it was so noticeably good that all other weeds, until past six years, paled. skunk sounds great. will follow your quest!

Never heard of Citroli hash? Most of what we got back in the early 90's was just called "commercial" but sometimes they'd name it Afghan, Nepalese, Cashmere, etc. In the later 90's we got more Lebanese and Moroccan and also lots of Jamaican red gum (the Jam was from the bikers). Starting in the very late 90's or early 2000's, pretty much all imports stopped and became very rare (thanks to 9/11 in large part). From then on, local hash started to be the norm, mostly made from M39... Was pretty shit but it got us buzzed

lebanese i smoked a lot of. citroli was before that. no fond memories. nepalese temple balls are something i heard of but never tried, hash-opium combination i think. thai stick was one of the more exotic things i knew. pretty mellow.

Do these guys ever answer emails? I've been trying to sign up and for some reason when trying to register it doesn't take the picture of my ID (jpeg). Reached out via website and email multiple times but have not received any response.

Kinda frustrating and a terrible customer experience. Cheers.


Ypsi.

They've always replied to all my emails but they can take a few days sometimes. They are on Discord now, so maybe you can get in touch there. Link is on main page.

Ypsi wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 3:00 pm Do these guys ever answer emails? I've been trying to sign up and for some reason when trying to register it doesn't take the picture of my ID (jpeg). Reached out via website and email multiple times but have not received any response.

Kinda frustrating and a terrible customer experience. Cheers.


Ypsi.

No Soup for you !