Deep in the tangled forests and sprawling vineyards of Anderson Valley’s wine country in Mendocino, California, is a new kind of cannabis tourism experience centered on rare landrace cannabis strains. It’s called The Madrones.
In the southern-most point of the Emerald Triangle, founders Jim Roberts and Brian Adkinson combined their love of wine and rare landrace cannabis genetics into a bucolic experience that could easily exist in Provence or along the Mediterranean coast.
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The Madrones is a compound that consists of elegant accommodations, a farm-to-table restaurant, two wine tasting rooms, an event venue called The Brambles nestled in a redwood grove, and an apothecary-style dispensary by the owners’ cannabis brand, The Bohemian Chemist, which specializes in rare landrace strains.
Landrace cannabis strains exist as the earth’s pure expression of the plant. They are the wild, original varieties that evolved naturally in specific geographic regions around the world, and have adapted distinct characteristics–and highs–based on their environments.
Landrace strains
Landrace varieties like Acapulco Gold and Durban Poison from below the equator create sativa growing structures with uplifting effects, whereas varieties from the north like Hindu Kush and Afghan have indica bud structures with heavier highs.
“I remember the cannabis I had four decades ago,” said Jim Roberts, who owns and operates The Madrones as well as The Bohemian Chemist with his partner, Brian Adkinson. “The effects were really unique and very special. All of it was imported, coming in from Thailand or Mexico or Vietnam, and so on.”
The Bohemian Chemist farm was originally owned by Roberts’ mother, who grew cannabis there until her passing. A master gardener himself, Roberts found himself dissatisfied with the current flower on the market, and wanted to bring the single-source genetics that defined the kaleidoscopic highs of his bohemian youth to today’s market.
“When I got back into cannabis and we started our brand, there were so many poly hybrids out there. I just wasn’t getting the effects that I remembered from my youth,” he said. “That’s when I started digging back and trying to find the original building blocks of the landraces of that time.”
He continues, “A lot of them had high levels of minor cannabinoids. Their terpene profiles were different. The complexity of what they were, overall, was just really, really different. They weren’t as muddied as the popular strains of today.”
With varieties like Acapulco Gold, Black African Magic, Moloka’i Frost, Afghan Skunk, and more, the Bohemian Chemist invites you to experience the healing highs of this plant purely as nature intended, whether from your own home, or the comfort of their exquisite resort experience.
While the majority of weed tourism consists of high-kitsch venues screaming about the fact that they have weed you can consume there, The Madrones elevates the lot by whispering, wanna light up, over a nice glass of Sav Blanc.
