Why Colorado Tokers Love Lilac Diesel

Just about every time I get cocky enough to assume I can guess a strain’s effects based on its name, I always get brought back down to earth — or shot out to space, depending on the strain. But a Diesel had never done me wrong...until I got seduced by a bouquet of lilacs.

Aromatically alluring and extremely dangerous, Lilac Diesel is a sedative cross of several strains, including Citral Glue, Forbidden Fruit, New York City Diesel, Cherry Pie and Super Lemon Haze. The combination results in an intoxicating odor that somehow showcases a slice of each parent strain. Sweet, tropical notes of berries and fruit as well as sour, rubbery hints of gas are blanketed by calming yet zesty floral notes of lavender — or lilac, if you really want to go there.

The strain’s complex smell took my nostrils on a bungee jump, with sweet, earthy and gassy notes bouncing around my nose, confusing my senses while also intriguing them. Smoking Lilac Diesel brought a similar experience, giving me a gust of joyful energy for about thirty minutes before throwing me on the couch for good, not counting several trips to the fridge that killed the first two weeks of my late-spring diet.

Lilac Diesel is becoming more popular in Denver and is available at Ballpark Holistic Dispensary, the Clinic, Doc’s Apothecary, Golden Meds, The Green Solution, Groundswell, The Health Center, Levels, Lit Cannabis, LoDo Wellness Center and the Lodge, among other stores, with wholesalers such as Bonsai, Olio and Viola supplying it to most of those stores in flower and concentrate. Bonsai and the Health Center have produced the best-smelling bouquets of Lilac flower so far, but both Olio and Viola can extract that flavor even further in their live concentrates.

Looks: Although generally narrow in shape, Lilac Diesel is more than capable of producing dense, fat calyxes that like to foxtail. The spiky buds make for an easy trim, both for topping and after harvest. Expect a lime-green color made even brighter by a thick sheet of trichomes.

Smell: Sweet, soapy and floral (in the same way that people who don’t like passion fruit describe passion fruit), Lilac Diesel offers a hodgepodge of cannabis smells, with high levels of terpinolene (allspice, soap, perfume) and myrcene (mangoes, hops, thyme).

Flavor: A sweet bowl of tropical fruit and citrus hits the tastebuds but is quickly swallowed by a skunky, rubbery wave of Diesel and floral, piney and earthy flavors.

Effects: Lilac Diesel can serve more than one purpose, as long as you know what you’re getting into. I got a short burst of energy — no more than twenty or thirty minutes — followed by groggy, unfocused giggles and intense munchies. Hardly what I expected from a Diesel, but it turned into a good strain for neck pain, an upset stomach and winding down before bed.

Home grower’s take: “I got my seeds from a seed bank that sold Ethos Genetics, but I guess you can get clones of it around here now — but I’m not always sure about those when it comes to rarer strains, like Lilac.
The seeds are worth the squeeze, though. It took me weeks and a few friends’ opinions to nail down that fruity, tangled smell, and the buds were covered in snow. The rosin of this was nice because of those plump, sharp trichomes. It didn’t take that much longer to bloom once it was at that stage — probably around eight weeks, maybe nine.”

Commercial grower’s take: “This really mixes my head up, like Chemdog or Cookies. There’s just so much going on there, and you can get that from the smell; even some of our budtenders couldn’t really figure out which way it leaned after passing a jar around. It’s an average yielder, I’d say, but the resin production is basically off the charts. It’s great for solventless [concentrates], and it’s a nice twist to that usually sharp Diesel flavor.”

Is there a strain you’d like to see profiled? Email [email protected].