Fresh off some Memorial Day grilling and chilling, we have a baker’s dozen of elite weed picks to heat up your summer, Leafly Nation. 

We not only crawled the online menus, stores, and grow rooms. We threw a freaking weed festival—SF Weed Week—and invited all the dopest growers down. And you know what, the honey pot worked. We spent the last four weeks elbows deep in bags of hype trees. Here’s our unmissable hits of May: 

Data grinder

Trop Cherry

⬆️56%

Trop Cherry (aka Tropicana Cherry) keeps winning all summer, gang. Tropicana Cookies x Cherry Cookies F3 from Relentless Genetics out of Colorado leaves you focused, energetic, and creative. We need those attributes during the long days. It smells and tastes like it sounds—with tropical citrus, plus berry and tree fruit notes. “The best sativa I’ve had—bar none,” said one reviewer.

Lemon Tree

⬆️14%

Happy, energetic, and talkative, the modern classic Lemon Tree kept growing in popularity this month. It’s Lemon Skunk x Sour Diesel, so it has a serious punch. The lemon and diesel taste is just lip-smacking in the sun. 

Candy Fumez

⬆️12%

Hype growers and hashmakers like 710 Labs helped propel Candy Fumez to new heights in May. The breeder Bloom Seed Co made this strain to dump hash and satisfy the cracked sweet tooth of cannabis culture. Mission accomplished. It’s Z x Sherbanger and maybe the start of a new Era. “Anytime you can get your hands on this don’t make the mistake of buying small!,” said one Leafly reviewer.

Permanent Marker

⬆️11%

Give yourselves a high five, Leafly smokers, we did it. The Leafly Strain of the Year 2023 Permanent Marker has settled into a top 10 groove on the West Coast. Shop for phenomenal examples from Connected Cannabis Co., and CAM; plus new crosses from Seven Leaves, and badder from Arcata Fire.

New in the Leafly strain database

True Ryder OG

As the real OGs become harder and harder to find—look North. Arcanna brand outdoor Mendocino County True Ryder OG didn’t last long on the review shelf this May. It’s a mix of Fire OG x (True Kush x Blue Dream) x Big Cherry (aka Sour Cookies) for that gassed-out peppery pine fuel fun. When you’ve earned some time lounging by the river, True Ryder OG will make the sunlight and the colors even better.

Peppermint Sleighride

May is still a peak season for 2023 outdoor—it’s all in how you store and cure it. You know who’s good at that? Emerald Cup-winning Greenshock Farms. They brought down some small batches of Peppermint Sleighride for SF Weed Week in April. We’ve been smoking through a half-ounce of it from Solful for the last month—returning to its candied grapefruit, pine, and mint taste, and its happy, present, and content feelings. It’s Purple Candy Cane x Pina from Mark at Greenshock, who also swears by those outdoor smells and effects.

Guava Runtz x Cherry Gushers

Turning to hype indoor flavors now, Bosky Genetics is burning up California with its pristine, loud, and potent lineup. Everything Bosky grows hits like a dump truck, but the Guava Runtz x Cherry Gushers has legit cherry terps that’ll make the heads swear, “GYAT!” Ryan Bosky melds decades of grow room experience with custom in-house flavors like this for small-batch, premium craft.

Randy Watson

Smoking through the Emerald Cup pre-roll judges kit in the sub-category hash holes put me on to Randy Watson—a cross of Runtz x Wedding Crashers. We’ve seen 710 Labs work with it and now the hash hole brand Dunkz. It’s dessert candy terps with more earthy funk. Randy Watson is an incidental character in Coming to America 1988, that’s become a pop culture reference.

Picks of the dispensaries

New on shelves

Lemon Pepper by MOCA

Eureka, CA indoor living soil growers MOCA have some sativa to go with your sunshine—Lemon Pepper. It’s Lemon Cooler x Lemon Pebblez for super-lemony, but syrupy and dank. Not thin or grassy. For those who like Gelonade, gas, and lemon, you can work on Lemon Pepper. MOCA grows batches measured in pounds or tens of pounds, and they can’t keep them on shelves. This is a strong Buy.

Burning up the charts

Tangerine Sunrise by UpNorth

Start your day on UpNorth’sTangerine Sunrise for deep, candied tangie syrup and dank vibes with your cup of coffee. Sleep in, make some waffles, wake and bake, and get gardening. UpNorth has its pick of fine legacy producers in the Emerald Triangle and only brings out 6-star stunners. Tangerine Sunrise is a cross of Hawaiian Sunrise and Tangerine Haze. 

Best-sellers

Ballin out

Wagyu by Clout King

The brand Clout King brings fire to the masses in several states. One standout this quarter—their Wagyu. It’s a Meatbreath crossed with a Lemon Cherry Gelato, so the savory rank terps from the Meatbreath get dialed back by the crowd-favorite LCG. Leafly’s reviewers get unique apricot, chestnuts, and coffee notes off this strain. It leaves folks tingly, sleepy and relaxed. Some use it for stress and mood stabilization. That tracks, because after a big serving of Wagyu, good luck stressing about much of anything

Ballin’ on a budget

LA Pop Rocks x Purple Push Pop by Seven Leaves

One thing we love about legal weed—the joints and the nugs have gotten so much bigger. What they sell as “smalls” looks and smokes completely bomb. Sacramento, CA-based indoor brand Seven Leaves brought out smalls of candy sherbert strain LA Pop Rocks x Purple Push Pop, and it gets us there. It tests at 27% THC, which is plenty, and you pay for less stem.

High Note

Cherry Marker + Whitethorn Rose hash hole by Rosin Tech

I’m judging the Emerald Cup pre-rolls this month, I don’t think most people are ready for the new “hash hole” era we find ourselves in. Rosin Tech Labs has a hash-loaded mega-joint that’s 1.3 grams of CAM Cherry Marker flower paired with 0.3 grams of Huckleberry Hill Farms Whitethorn Rose rosin. The rare cherry pheno of Permanent Marker smelled and tasted like cherries from the jar note to the dry hit to the burn. The delicate, floral, soaring Whitethorn Rose comes through when the rosin ignites. This joint could fade, like, 10 people. Smoke the whole thing with a buddy, and your day is over.

And that’s a baker’s dozen Leafly Buzz picks to round out May 2024. The action gets hot and heavy as travel and contest season ramp, so download the app and turn on notifications to scoop the zaza before the custies beat you to it. 

Growers, breeders, brands, stores—got buzz for Leafly? We’re all ears. Email us at david.downs@leafly.com