DabLogic's Tree of Rosin Extraction Extends Far and Wide

If cannabis extraction were professional sports, then Julian Casellas would have an impressive coaching record. The DabLogic founder has taught and employed a long list of talented cannabis extractors, many of whom went on to become his competition. But if he's concerned about facing off against former acolytes, Casellas doesn't show it. The longtime rosin maker is more worried about cheap operations selling old trim sap in dispensaries.

"Honestly, it was needed," Casellas says of his mentees who've launched or led their own extraction labs. "If you only have three people making hash, then not many people are able to smoke it. On the other hand, it's also created a lot of lower-quality rosin out there, where greedy imitators will just throw anything in a jar."

Former DabLogic employees have gone on to lead esteemed outfits for Akta, Allgreens, CGC and Soiku Bano, and that's just a handful of the Colorado examples. DabLogic's hash-making heritage extends throughout the country. Still, no state has seen its mark like Colorado.

Coloradans love hash. We buy a lot of regular weed, too, but shatter, wax, resin, rosin and other extracted forms of cannabis have become popular among users since commercial legalization, with rosin considered the highest-quality form when made right. This requires a lengthy process of freezing freshly harvested cannabis, extracting bubble hash out of the frozen flower with ice water, and then using pressure and heat to further extract flavorful, potent dabs of live rosin. The result isn't cheap, but cannabis lovers are willing to pay upwards of $75 per gram for it.

According to dispensary sales analytics firm BDSA, the number of Colorado shoppers who reported smoking or vaping with rosin doubled from 2020 to 2022, and rosin holds the highest share of dabbable concentrate sales in Colorado compared to any other state. Much of that can be traced back to Nikka T, whose Essential Extracts facility in Denver is widely considered the first licensed rosin maker in the country. Nikka T moved on to extraction consulting across the globe a while ago, however, so Casellas began carrying the torch.

"When we first started, we weren't competing against other rosin companies. We were competing against BHO and hydrocarbon extracts," Casellas recalls. "Nowadays, you can buy a seed that will pop and yield 4 percent [rosin production] right away, but you used to have to pop 200 seeds to get there. You can find $25 grams of rosin, too, but I trust BHO more at the price."
This crowded pool leads to a lot of "Nespresso" rosin with similar flavor and results, according to Casellas, who views that as a lesser product. He says he's willing to forgo yield in favor of his favorite gas-forward flavor profiles and terpene-heavy effects — which is why DabLogic routinely has the most expensive grams on the shelf, ranging anywhere from $55 to $85.

Casellas doesn't apologize for the price tag.

"We'll run stuff that yields under 1 percent as an ode to the flavor notes. When you breed things just to wash better, you're losing that flavor and all-out pungency that a plant can offer. The only way you'll get there is by popping seeds, and we pop about 1,000 seeds a month," he says. "We've spent years, countless hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars to learn this. You're not just paying for a gram of rosin. You're paying for the years of hard work."

Casellas's work includes a patent in rosin-vaporizing technology that he leaves open for outside use. His vape cartridges provide some of the closest hits to a real dab because "the key is to keep the contents under 50 percent THCA. Anything more will crystallize," he says. His partners at Verde Natural dispensary and cultivation, which supplies virtually all of DabLogic's starting material, rebranded their Boulder dispensary as a store called Hash House to capitalize on DabLogic's popularity. Despite rosin's success in Colorado, seeing a dispensary focus on hash instead of flower is quite rare.

Even rarer is an extractor that doesn't buy into Zkittlez and other strains with candy-forward flavors that have engulfed the attention of consumers and breeders. Although he does love the wave of modern savory strains, calling GMO "the number-one hash plant that has ever existed, hands down," Casellas prefers living in the days of Lemon Skunk, San Fernando Valley OG and Coal Creek Kush. In fact, he really hasn't left them.

While he'd be a fool to snub his nose at the Papayas of the world  — and he doesn't —  Casellas maintains that DabLogic will always be more of a gas station than a candy shop.

He and his small crew aim to drop one new strain each week and have a range of new releases coming in October, including Black Piff, which took fourteen weeks to harvest (six weeks longer than the industry standard). He's not ready to announce everything just yet, but you can bet on each creation smelling unique yet familiar at the same time.

"Most people like to follow trends off others instead of creating trends for themselves," Casellas observes. "For me, it's all about breeding new varieties, but also taking a Haze or strains that are left untouched or not thought about anymore and pulling out what lies inside of them. You know, flavors like curry, BO, cat piss, onions and a raunchier, gassier incense."

We call that a modern deconstruction of classic cannabis. He just calls it DabLogic.