There are no stems, no seeds and no messing around with the indica-dominant Birthday Face. A cross of Birthday Cake and Face on Fire #9, it regularly tests at over 32% THC, with over 35% THCa. The elevated THC levels work together with a strong limonene profile to produce an intensely relaxing high that hits like a train. Birthday Face’s light and fluffy, yet sticky and dense, buds feature golden trichomes and bronze hairs.
These nugs are fit for celebration, and produce a combined candy-, berry- ,and pine-flavored smoke that smells as delicious as it tastes. Full-plant harvest dried for 13-15 days at a climate-controlled 60ºF at 60% relative humidity; hand-trimmed and cured for 10-14 days.
Birthday Face by The Grower Circle. (Chris Kudialis)
90-94 Outstanding: a cannabis product of superior character and style
85-89 Very good: a weed with special qualities
80-84 Good: a solid, well-made weed
75-79 Mediocre: a smokeable weed that may have minor flaws
50-74 Not recommended
How we rate
Dried, cured, packaged, and sold buds, reviewed from bag in tastings, are given a single score. We focus on aroma, taste, effect, look, pedigree, cultivation method, and more. Special Designations Our editors focus on excellent, widely available ganja at a reasonable price. Special qualities include:
Top-shelf: It ain’t cheap, or necessarily plentiful, but it’s really good. Welcome to the top shelf. Smart Buys: Fine, affordable, broadly available pot.
Leafly News cannabis ratings and ethics
Leafly News aims to retain and expand its expertise, authority, and trust.
Expertise is built through years of reviews, interviews with growers, visits to weed regions, and accumulated knowledge about cannabis horticulture, flavors, history, and culture. Leafly News’ editors and freelancers have a combined 50 years of experience with cannabis. We aim to be accurate and independent, with policies including:
Actual tastings—If we didn’t smoke it, we’re not reviewing it. At Leafly Ratings, all ratings come from multiple tastings.
Independence—Leafly expert reviewers are paid by Leafly and are independent. We accept review samples with no promise of coverage. Leafly rating staff cannot accept bribes. We generally pay our own expenses and report on what the readers want to see.
The Grammy Awards have Record of the Year. Time Magazine has Person of the Year. And Merriam-Webster even does Word of the Year. You know what’s way cooler? Leafly Strain of the Year, and it arrives Tuesday, Dec. 5.
So let’s wet your bong with nine badass strains that ran in the front of the pack to become Leafly Strain of the Year 2023. We repeat: the strains below are NOT Leafly Strain of the Year 2023—but they performed admirably and they deserve plenty of shine of their own.
Here are some all-star strains that did numbers this year—find and shop them on Leafly and take a fat rip of transcendence.
9th runner-up—Grape Cream Cake
Hundreds upon hundreds of dispensaries served up fresh Grape Cream Cake in 2023, making Leafly take notice, and add it to the short list of potential winners this year. Bred by Bloom Seed Co from Cannarado’s Grape Pie x Wedding Crasher, it should emit grape, cream, and cake smells and tastes, and elicit an indica hybrid effect. Colorado ate it up, and so did hash-makers—they’re always on the look-out for strains that squish well and release gobs of sticky rosin. All of these attributes proved fashionable and delightful in 2023. Congrats Bloom Seed Co on another flower in your crown—look out for more ooey-gooey goodness from Bloom Seed Co in 2024. We love their new Candy Fumez.
8th runner-up—GastroPop
GastroPop. (Courtesy Sonoma Hills Farm)
Breeder Compound Genetics had a solid year with one of their royalty strains GastroPop—a cross of Apples & Bananas x Grape Gas. It’s purple with grape, fuel, and fizzy soda flavors that hits hybrid and can potentially help manage pain, depression, or stress. Also you will eat your entire fridge. Bred during the Chris Lynch era at Compound, Grape Gas itself has the winners Grape Pie and Jet Fuel Gelato in it. Apples & Bananas keeps winning with the potent parents Blue Power x Gelatti. Over the last year, we saw GastroPop start appearing on hundreds of dispensary menus nationwide, and generate significant buzz: two key attributes of any strain of the year contender. GastroPop crosses have had a solid year as well. Don’t miss Pink Certz, or Glitter Bomb. Even newer ones hit the grow rooms in 2024 like GastroPop S1, and GastroPop x Mellowz.
7th runner-up—Devil Driver
Devil Driver grown by CAM in Cali. (David Downs/Leafly)
We’re keeping a close eye on everything the relatively new breeder Tiki Madman works on—especially after seeing the year that Devil Driver had. Tiki combined Cannarado’s heavy hitting dessert strain Sundae Driver with Midwest Best’s Watermelon Z x Lemon Tree #11 hybrid dubbed Melonade. Devil Driver looks sleeted with icy white trichomes over a dramatic, dark leaf—really helping set the bar for weed aesthetics in 2023. It’s a rockstar in the grow room, said large-scale high-end California indoor grower Anna Willey, founder of CAM. “I love it. It literally is the most beautiful plant growing ever, ever, ever.” Devil Driver tests sky-high in THC with sativa-leaning hybrid effects and a muted, coy lemon-citrus-spice smell and taste. You know Devil Driver’s a hit based on all the breeders working to make crosses of it. Budtenders nationwide also recommended Devil Driver often in our first annual Budtenders’ Choice Awards survey, the results of which go live on December 5th with Leafly Strain of the Year. See also: Dante’s Inferno.
And that’s three of the strains we short-listed on our search for Leafly Strain of the Year 2023. Come back Thursday and Friday Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 as we unveil the 6th, 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd and 1st runners-up to Leafly Strain of the Year 2023.
And set your alarms for 6 am PST on December 5th when we announce Leafly Strain of the Year 2023—it’s gonna slap!
6th runner-up—To Be Announced
We reveal the 6th runner-up to Leafly Strain of the Year 2023 on Thursday, Nov. 30.
5th runner-up—To Be Announced
Leafly reveals the 5th runner-up on Thursday, Nov. 30.
4th runner-up—To Be Announced
Leafly reveals the 4th runner-up on Thursday, Nov. 30.
3rd runner-up—To Be Announced
Leafly reveals the 3rd runner-up on Friday, Dec. 1.
2nd runner-up—To Be Announced
Leafly reveals the 2nd runner-up on Friday, Dec. 1.
1st runner-up—To Be Announced
Leafly reveals the 1st runner-up on Friday, Dec. 1.
How do we choose Leafly Strain of the Year each year?
Leafly Strain of the Year aims to bottle the essence of the connoisseur cannabis conversation unfolding across the country and online globally over the last year.
We fuse two approaches to land on Leafly Strain of the Year each year: 1) a qualitative approach informed by 2) data from unparalleled quantitative insight into national strain trends.
The qualitative: Leafly has nearly full access to the qualitative aspects of weed. We smoke hundreds of new cultivars per year and travel the world interviewing breeders, growers, buyers, budtenders, smokers, and influencers to get a tactile sense of what’s smoking. We got literal file cabinets full of new weed.
… there’s no ChatGPT prompt that’ll ever hallucinate anything close to Leafly Strain of the Year.
The quantitative: We take all those smoking notes and insights and go back to our analytics looking for new strains that had a break-out year in terms of national menu penetration, sessions to the Strain Detail Page, and other data factors—similar to the NFL picking its Most Valuable Player each year. With nearly 6,000 strains in the database, thousands of store menus listed, and millions of monthly active users—only Leafly has this level of insight into both the data of modern cultivars and the sensory attributes of smoking them.
As long as computers can’t walk the US weed beat, smelling, tasting, and getting high, there’s no ChatGPT prompt that’ll ever hallucinate anything close to Leafly Strain of the Year. So thanks for rocking with us.
This classy strain should be on every stoners’ “Need to Try” list. The first hit releases a powerful, pungent sour aroma of mint and menthol, and that gas flavor immediately wakes you up. But then the Mexican Flan fades into something sweeter; the wonderful hints of cream and vanilla in its aftertaste mix and dance together beautifully. The Mexican Flan buds are an elegant and frosty green. The strain offers a clear head high that enhances focus, and puts that heavy pressure feeling on the eyes, too. The body high is strong and relaxes the body into a soothing state. —Lord Figo
Cookies New Jersey’s Mexican Flan bag. (Lord Figo for Leafly)
90-94 Outstanding: a cannabis product of superior character and style
85-89 Very good: a weed with special qualities
80-84 Good: a solid, well-made weed
75-79 Mediocre: a smokeable weed that may have minor flaws
50-74 Not recommended
How we rate
Dried, cured, packaged, and sold buds, reviewed from bag in tastings, are given a single score. We focus on aroma, taste, effect, look, pedigree, cultivation method, and more. Special Designations Our editors focus on excellent, widely available ganja at a reasonable price. Special qualities include:
Top-shelf: It ain’t cheap, or necessarily plentiful, but it’s really good. Welcome to the top shelf. Smart Buys: Fine, affordable, broadly available pot.
Leafly News cannabis ratings and ethics
Leafly News aims to retain and expand its expertise, authority, and trust.
Expertise is built through years of reviews, interviews with growers, visits to weed regions, and accumulated knowledge about cannabis horticulture, flavors, history, and culture. Leafly News’ editors and freelancers have a combined 50 years of experience with cannabis. We aim to be accurate and independent, with policies including:
Actual tastings—If we didn’t smoke it, we’re not reviewing it. At Leafly Ratings, all ratings come from multiple tastings.
Independence—Leafly expert reviewers are paid by Leafly and are independent. We accept review samples with no promise of coverage. Leafly rating staff cannot accept bribes. We generally pay our own expenses and report on what the readers want to see.
Hawaiian Rain is awesome! It offers a very clean, floral, earthy flavor with spectacular hints of sweet, berry candy in its aftertaste. Its frosty green buds include tons of orange streaks as well. Hawaiian Rain (London Pound Mints x Jealousy) is an excellent strain for chilling out and listening to music: The head high zoned me out, but is also very euphoric! Plus, the body high isn’t too strong, and didn’t lock me in the couch. —Lord Figo
Hawaiian Rain bag in New Jersey. (Lord Figo for Leafly)
90-94 Outstanding: a cannabis product of superior character and style
85-89 Very good: a weed with special qualities
80-84 Good: a solid, well-made weed
75-79 Mediocre: a smokeable weed that may have minor flaws
50-74 Not recommended
How we rate
Dried, cured, packaged, and sold buds, reviewed from bag in tastings, are given a single score. We focus on aroma, taste, effect, look, pedigree, cultivation method, and more. Special Designations Our editors focus on excellent, widely available ganja at a reasonable price. Special qualities include:
Top-shelf: It ain’t cheap, or necessarily plentiful, but it’s really good. Welcome to the top shelf. Smart Buys: Fine, affordable, broadly available pot.
Leafly News cannabis ratings and ethics
Leafly News aims to retain and expand its expertise, authority, and trust.
Expertise is built through years of reviews, interviews with growers, visits to weed regions, and accumulated knowledge about cannabis horticulture, flavors, history, and culture. Leafly News’ editors and freelancers have a combined 50 years of experience with cannabis. We aim to be accurate and independent, with policies including:
Actual tastings—If we didn’t smoke it, we’re not reviewing it. At Leafly Ratings, all ratings come from multiple tastings.
Independence—Leafly expert reviewers are paid by Leafly and are independent. We accept review samples with no promise of coverage. Leafly rating staff cannot accept bribes. We generally pay our own expenses and report on what the readers want to see.
