Ace of Spadez At-A-Glance
Highlights
Oakland's own Cannatique rebrands with a strikingly purple and gutsy swing for the top-shelf fences.
Effects
A dynamic zone out takes a big step back from worry and gets increasingly heavy in the body with each hit.
Price
$72 is too much for mediocre quality flower. Emjay's prices are spectacular-try something from Source or Fig Farms instead.
Find it On Emjay
Double Down and Get the Hot Hand with Cannatique Ace of Spadez here on Emjay for free delivery or in-store pick up.
About Cannatique
Cannatique Farms was founded in Oakland by Rebecca Kirk and her father in 2011. Cannatique plays its flower game close to the chest—not much info is available on its grow process or ethos. Appropriately, Cannatique offers a No Cap strain to underscore their reliance on quality and word of mouth versus a prolonged origin story-an ideology the seems to orbit the exotic genetics space.
Cannatique’s mum is the word approach also signals a very LA power play by amping up their status and promise of quality by way of mystery-like the trendiest club in town not putting a sign out front. Cannatique bills itself as both “your favorite rapper’s favorite weed” and the Louis Vutton of cannabis. Confidence is attractive and with this bold braggadocio, Cannatique is looking good as hell.
With freshly-updated branding and a vast improvement in their graphic design, Cannatique has gone from the bare-bones minimalism of their Lemon Cherry Gelato CannaWandz to a sparkling new graphic appeal. Walking past the new-new in Sherbinskis’ Fresh Drops window, Cannatique is unrecognizable in their new stop-you-dead-in-you-tracks bags. With bravado to spare, I like to see the drip in packaging as well.
Highlights
Cannatique hangs its hat on enticing strain names and their commitment to that delicious aesthetic. When I first saw Blackberry Gelato in stores it literally made my mouth water. For their munchies-inducing Blueberry Cruffin pre-roll, the holographic foil wrapping is enough to shut off the logical side of your brain and hypnotize you into a “whatever-it-costs” purchase.
I heard from a budtender at Sherbinskis that Lemon Cherry Gelato was his personal favorite and that sealed the deal for me. Organic hype is what fuels and sustains Los Angeles. Artists are made and broken by their reputation. And the same goes for cannabis. As more and more options become available, it takes a lot more than a marketing budget to attract customers and keep them coming back.
Ace of Spadez is a bold stroke of nomenclature and squarely pits Cannatique in the company they so often summon-this is a high-roller smoke and the price point double, triple underscores that. $72 is the highest price I’ve ever seen on an eighth. And sticks out like a sore thumb among Emjay’s fantastic pricing and daily deals. It takes guts to overshoot our most affordable eighths by nearly $60 bucks. Can Cannatique back up all this big game and justify a sky-high price? Deal me in and let’s find out.
Effects
Ace of Spadez might be the single sickest bag of weed of all time. I prefer jars for a variety of reasons but within the confines of how sexy a plastic bag can be, Ace of Spadez knocks it out of the ballpark. Simply holding the Ace is enough to make you feel like you’ve won. The packaging makes you feel like a badass and like a game-winning hand you wanna flash the Ace to everyone. With eerily grinning skulls on the back of the bag, the graphic design leans into an underused heavy metal flavor of stoner culture.
The Ace holds the hot hand on aroma- deep rich berries and some earthy spice combine into an olfactory heavily reminiscent of the Ice Cream Cake strain and Homer Simpson’s correct assertion that “purple is a fruit”. The flower’s smell was quickly dwarfed in importance by the realization that 99% of my 3.5 grams came in one singular, breathtaking nug. The nug to end all nugs shone massively and proudly in uninterrupted magnificence.
Ball don’t lie and neither does the nose as this miniature Christmas tree-sized nug came out as purple as it smells. If you live in a cramped Manhattan studio apartment this is the perfect size to hang ornaments on this holiday season. I hope you never get too jaded to lose your curiosity and awe at the Earth making this with her body. I couldn’t bring myself to break up the behemoth bud but the small nuggets were just as foundationally purple and sparkling as the leader of the pack.
Ground up, Ace is ready for Halloween in equal parts Joker green and purple. I cleaned my pipe for this occasion-Cannatique’s $72/eighth price point is bold, to say the least. Pricing yourself not only above but well above the most talked about and beloved brands puts a target on your back.
When I first got my medical card way back when I would dispensary hop for the first time patient deals and almost never go back to the same place twice. Over the years I’ve spent a good deal of time checking the menus for LA area shops. Emjay (which was my exclusive delivery service before I got hired here) has the single best prices in Los Angeles. $60 top shelf is a great price-asking the consumer to go 20% higher needs to be substantiated with quality.
On the inhale a robust perfume and mouthfeel erupt as a counterpoint to the light gas plume en vogue these days. Ace does not smoke crisp nor significantly smooth. Lean into the intensity with bong rips or throw in your volcano vape for some delicious flavor. Ace of Spadez’ mental effects are interesting-nothing is upsetting or too worrisome. This would be a good smoke for a job that is not very mentally demanding but you’d love to take a step back from it.
Ace is also a great choice for a lazy zone out as each bowl gets increasingly heavy in the body. This is a great one for mind-boggling documentaries (I like “Free Solo” and “Fantastic Fungi”). I found my flower to be very dry and a little stem-y which is a major turn-off. The quality of the flower is nowhere near where it should be for the top shelf. Try a lower-cost better quality flower with Cannabiotix Cereal Milk or splurge for a way better experience on the $45 Packwoods 2gram Double infused Cherry-AK 47 Blunt worth every penny.
Price
There is no reason at all for this to be $72. Overpriced.
