Why Colorado Tokers Love Pound Cake

Pound cake dates back 200 years, but the confection never grabbed more than a passing thought from me. It looks like a denser version of potato bread, and is essentially invisible to anyone under fifty shopping at a grocery-store bakery. My experiences with pound cake ended with a few stupid jokes in my preteen years, and that was that. Or so I thought.

Now that I'm grown and much more mature, pound cake fucks.

The northern European dessert's name comes from its recipe, which literally involves mixing together a pound of butter, sugar, flour and eggs. Add in a spot of tea, some blueberry jam or lemon-poppyseed icing (yowza), and chap, you've got yourself one jolly good garden party.

It was only a matter of time before a Cookies strain took the name of such a buttery, classic dessert — well, that combined with the fact that breeders are running out of pastry labels to slap on their weed. So I wasn't shocked to discover something called London Pound Cake, a hybrid of Sunset Sherbet and an undisclosed strain, on dispensary shelves. Seeing Pound Cake, a generic version of the same strain, from in-house grows at pot shops was more of a surprise, however. Maybe it was time for a cake walk.

Pound Cake (or London Pound Cake; call it what you want) isn't related to Lemon Pound Cake, a Lemon Skunk and Cheese cross. It's not as good as Lemon Pound Cake, either, but that's okay. Pound Cake is still a flavorful hybrid in its own right, and fit right in on my evening menu — but it didn't taste like pound cake...or any cake, for that matter.

If we're being honest, no weed really tastes like cakes or pies, but Pound Cake's earthy qualities were too strong to let me trick myself into anything here. The Kush flavor was still welcome on my tastebuds, though, and Pound Cake's effects were easy to figure out, consistent and useful. The high is invigorating at first, killing my stress and raising my curiosity for a little less than an hour before my appetite is primed and ready. Even without the munchies, I still eventually fade.

You can find Pound Cake at Cookies and dispensaries carrying Cookies strains, but several other growers have taken on the strain, too. There are in-house versions at the Healing Tree, the Health Center and Rocky Mountain Cannabis, with wholesale grower Millennia Genetics growing Pound Cake, as well.

Looks: Pound Cake's buds can range from bright green to forest green, with darker buds typically carrying deep spots of purple, too. Despite the color variance, most of the Pound Cake I've seen is denser than the long, gnarled flowers suggest.

Smell: Pound Cake smells more like an OG with a hint of Durban Poison and berries than anything full of butter and flour. Thick hints of pine and citrus cleaner fill my nostrils first, with a musty, woody scent mixed in and quiet but noticeable hints of grapes and berries rounding it out. It's delightful, but not reminiscent of pound cake.

Flavor: Like a souped-up version of Kushes and OGs from the early 2000s, Pound Cake carries dry, resinous flavors of pine and lemon cleaner with a subtle hint of wood. Sweeter aspects with berry overtones stick to the side of my mouth, giving the strain a fruity balance.

Effects: People often describe Pound Cake as a heavy hitter, but I find the high more complex, and somewhere closer to a 70/30 hybrid. I'm engaged and giggly for a short time and my mind is never foggy, but the physical relaxation creeps in within an hour. Although those calming effects don't turn me into a zombie, they're still enough for your smartwatch to call you out for being an immobile piece of shit.

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