Sure, Green Unicorn Farms advertises their Godfather OG CBD (a cross of Early Resin Berry and type-3 OG, from Big Dog Exotics and grown by MedMeridian) as an indica strain suited for mellow evenings and full brain turn-off time. Silly me to think that a CBD strain could have that kind of effect…boy, was I wrong.
Godfather OG packs a soothing and tranquilizing effect that’s as robust as its rich notes of sweet fruit and cake dough. It made me a bit giggly, too. The super frosty bud feels sticky to the touch, and proved delightfully dense. Lastly, I was particularly impressed by how long its effects persisted: much longer than most other CBD strains I’ve tried.
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 Weed Spectator, all ratings come from multiple tastings.
Independence—Leafly weed spectators 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.
Does the weight of a new year make you a bit nervous or bummed out?
Big cannabis flavor chasers should hit the weed shop for a trending star of dispensaries this January. All across the US, the three-year-old hype strain Rainbow Sherbert #11 (RS-11) is surging onto hundreds more menus.
Available as top-shelf flower, bargain ounces, dabs, vapes and even tinctures, RS-11 delivers big, tropical Kerns nectar juice flavors and versatile fun effects. RS-11 has gotten so big it’s become our Leafly HighLight strain for January 2025.
Reviewers say RS-11 gives off notes of apricot, peach, and citrus. It makes them focused, giggly, and relaxed—which sounds pretty perfect for gaming or hobby time.
A sibling to Zoap, RS-11 is ranked No. 30 in traffic on Leafly Strains. It’s now a top 300 strain nationally in stores, with hundreds of stores adding it this year.
Leafly reviewers give RS-11 a 4.4 out of 5 after 140 ratings, and 6,966 have bookmarked it as a favorite.
About a fifth of Leafly reviewers say RS-11 helps calm them, treat pain, or lift their blues.
RS-11’s parents include this cross of OG Kush and Z dubbed “Pink Guava” after the juice of the same name. Oakland, CA breeder DEO Farms crossed his Pink Guava to a Sunset Sherbert, and all those flavors can be found in the offspring.
Leafly “reviewers rave: “The candy guava sour citrus flavor profile is one of the best for flavor I’ve had in 30 years puffin bud.”
RS-11 has versatile effects that lie near the center between calming and energetic. If you’re getting creative, RS11 might quiet your inner critic.
A “reviewer writes: “If you create art, try this strain. Mentally energetic but without any tension or anxiety. RS11 has a place in art heaven.”
Where is the best RS-11 in the US?
Growers and extractors have blanketed the US in RS-11 flower, vapes, dabs, and even edibles. Over 1,600 stores in the country with menus on Leafly sell the cultivar.
In Seattle, WA, your best bet is the Torus pre-roll, Mama J’s rosin, or Freddy’s Fuego flower.
Phoenix, AZ is for stoners—with RS-11 live rosin by 22Red, and RS-11 flower by Connected.
Detroiters in Michigan have 74 RS-11 options nearby, including live rosin all-in-ones for $40.
Where to buy RS-11 seeds
Deo Farms made RS-11 by crossing the OZ Kush project “Pink Guava” with a Sunset Sherbert. That led to the strain Zoap. The LA brand Wizard Trees took on two siblings to Zoap, the Rainbow Sherbert child numbers 11 and 54; hence RS-11 and RS-54.
Wizard Trees is heavily working this line, with a slew of RS-11 crosses like 11:11, which is RS-11 crossed back to itself to try and improve it.
Meanwhile, Barney’s Farm and DOJA Exclusive have released RS11x Banana OG.
Unofficial RS-11 seeds abound from seed-makers and seed banks worldwide, but their quality or authenticity will vary widely.
RS-11 has a lot of winners in her from the OG Kush, Z, and Sherbert parentage. RS-11 is a Leafly Strain of the Year runner-up in 2023. Her niece, Zoap, is a Budtender’s Choice strain of 2024 across the US. An RS-11 cross Magic Marker took the strongest strain in the Zalympix contest in Michigan in 2024.
What terpenes are in RS-11?
Weed’s smell comes from flavor molecules including terpenes. If you average out the lab tests of flowers labeled ‘RS-11’ they test relatively high in caryophyllene, limonene, and humulene. These terpenes and other lesser ones as well as other flavor molecules combine to give RS-11 its loud, tree fruit juice, citrus, and fuel nose.
Other highlights this January
If you can’t find RS-11 near you, look for strains in the wheelhouse—including:
Zoap
The niece to RS-11. Zoap comes from crossing two RS plants and selecting an offspring that has a distinctly detergent or ‘soapy’ terp.
RS-54
Wizard Trees has also popularized this similar sister to RS-11. When you need a rainbow inside your skull, RS-54 offers similar results.
Rainbow Belts
Archive Seeds took the tropical candy taffy grandparent of RS-11, known as The Original Z, and improved on it immensely to create the Rainbow Belts line.
OK, that’s your Leafly Highlight for January 2025. Good luck with your fitness goals and New Year’s resolutions. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is ever out of reach, but you can enjoy the heck out of the journey with RS-11.
Hey, what’s ‘Leafly HighLight’?
Weed shops will sell 200 types of flower—Who can choose? Leafly HighLight cures your choice paralysis with a monthly deep dive into a top 200, national cannabis cultivar you should smoke. We combine:
Leafly Strain Database search data
dispensary menu data
dispensary visits
and smoke sessions
Then we select one cultivar that pairs with the season and mood. That’s Leafly HighLight.
By now the shock has likely worn off—Seed Junky didn’t go three for three in Strain of the Year wins?!?! It feels unnecessary to say that Seed Junky and his strain empire will be just fine (and he makes plenty of appearances here.) The crown goes to lowkey California-based breeder Blockhead’s Blockberry aka Superboof, a playful strain that broke the gassy cream and candy profile streak of past SOTY winners for something more tangy, more rooted in fruit than fuel.
As editor David Downs reports in our 2024 Strain of the Year announcement, Super Boof descends from two strains that weed snobs have long underestimated: Tangie and Purple Punch. Looks like some apologies are in order! Or, if you’d still rather laugh at the Boof bandwagon, we deduced these six alternatives provide similar effects and flavor experiences.
7th runner-up—Sherbanger
If Gelato is the muse of rap songs, Sherbanger better suits a house beat. The electro-house duo Havoc on World created their song, Sherbanger, in perfect harmony with what the strain offers. It has Sherbet’s sweet notes, but it also blooms with Headbanger’s kushy, sour aroma. This is a great strain before a night on the dance floor, one that keeps your nerves at bay but gives you the guts to bust out all your best moves. Sherbanger is in nearly 1,000 stores on Leafly, but that is only half of Super Boof.
Another Compound Genetics winner evokes sweetness over savory terps. Gastro Pop descends from strains Apples & Bananas x Grape Gas, making it a cousin to Superboof with a crazy extended family. Apples & Bananas itself comes from braiding in old legacy strains like GDP with newer hitters like Gelatti and Blue Power; paired with Grape Gas, it runs the flavor spectrum of sweet berry, diesel fumes, and creamy.
5th runner-up—Cap Junky
Has anyone seen Gladiator II? If so, imagine if Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal got to team up and breed weed strains fit for an emperor instead of killing each other. That’s Cap Junky—a cross of Alien Cookies x Kush Mints #11, but also a cross of the talents of Capulator and Seed Junky, two canna-coliseum champions. Cap Junky evokes that same Super Boof playfulness, with a palate that favors a more menthol and earthy experience. Cap Junky is in nearly as many stores as Super Boof, but the experience is less versatile and more aggressive.
When you need a palate cleanse, wash your mouth out with Zoap. The Bay Area’s Deo Farms crafted Zoap from many disparate parts, including OZ Kush and the Rainbow Sherbet, aka RS line of strain. Zoap captures the kind of soap you’d buy at a farmer’s market—floral, earthy, and sweet. It has also carved out a place at cups, nabbing spots in multiple Zalympix and Hash Bashes. Your brain needs Zoap like your body needs soap. Zoap had a great run this year, but it’s still not as prevalent as Super Boof, nor as well-liked by budtenders.
Oh, LCG. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art as loud, and as sweet. This Backpackboyz creation takes a familiar cross, Sunset Sherbet x Thin Mint, but their spin on it reveals a visually-popping strain with strong tart citrus terps, plus Gelato’s signature euphoria. It has a trophy case full of reasons to try, including two High Times Cup wins, a handful of Farmer’s Cup wins, and placements on multiple best-of lists. It’s made its round across the country, appearing on dispensary menus from California to New York. We love LCG, but it was just not new enough to be Leafly Strain of the Year.
2nd runner-up—Tropical Slushie
Slushie, more specifically Tropical Slushie, comes from the not-very-tropical state of Colorado and its breeding don, Cannarado. Blending Snowman’s blizzard of trichomes with Papaya’s enigmatic fruitiness creates a strain sweet enough to sip on.
It’s new to our database, but it already has a reputation for complex terps and, surprisingly, an arousing effect. Slushie is in half as many clubs as Super Boof, and it hasn’t caught on with budtenders or the awards circuit—yet!
1st runner-up—Glitter Bomb
A glitter bomb requires vibrancy and surprise, so any strain named for it must also wow its audience. Compound Genetics’s complex breeding of OGKB Blueberry Headband x Grape Gas #10 creates both a prismatic plant, but also prismatic terps. Glitter Bomb catches the eye with its thick, opaque trichomes, and the nose with its sharp, petrol berry aromas. Still, Glitter Bomb is on 400 fewer menus than Super Boof, and lacked budtender or contest excitement.
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.
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.
Think we missed something great? Comment below with your Leafly Strain of the Year and be sure to tell us why.
This may be niche, Leafly Nation, but walk with me. There’s an old children’s rhyme I remember as a little girl that went “make new friends / but keep the old. One is silver / and the other’s gold.” It’s a nice mantra—don’t forget your old friends when you inevitably, in life, meet new people.
I think the same should be said for weed. The 2020s have so far shown remarkable innovation and growth in the strains bred, grown, and sold across the country. But does that mean we should abandon the old faithfuls that got us through tough times, all those years ago? I say ‘No,’ and it seems like you do too, Leafly Nation, because our 2024 bestsellers look a lot like our 2023 bestsellers. Here’s the rundown.
Listen, if you don’t want to keep seeing Blue Dream top the list, stop buying it! The Blueberry x Haze combination out of Santa Cruz, CA, may bore many cannasseurs, but it still offers whimsy to those willing to give it a chance. It still has tasty, skunky blueberry terps and the unique euphoria of the Haze family. Plus, it still offers patients an aid for both mood enhancement and some minor aches.
Winner, winner, Apple Fritter. This Lumpy’s cross of Sour Apple and Animal Cookies has climbed the ranks year after year, taking the coveted #2 spot on our list, plus some cup wins. Does it have what it takes to overthrow Blue Dream? Maybe. Leafly reviewers revere it for its palate of “sweet, but also has this funky, pungent dankness,” and effects that impart a “true, psychedelic happy euphoria.” Time will tell if this heady hybrid will reach the heights of #1.
“I got gelato in the air / I got money everywhere” raps Young Dolph in his 2017 song Gelato. Gelato is a strain for winners—it’s played some role in nearly every Strain of the Year (including its own crown) we’ve ever anointed. But it’s not just the awards circuit that loves Gelato. People love it, year after year. It helps that many phenotypes exist to provide nuance to what started the “candy gas” trend. Check out the best dozen with our The 12 best Gelato crosses of all time.
Even the snobbiest weed head can’t deny the allure of Wedding Cake—who doesn’t love cake? Wedding Cake has been on our most-sold and most-searched-for strains for years now, and the foot stays on the pedal. Since we dubbed it Strain of the Year in 2019, its legacy has increased exponentially with offshoots like Ice Cream Cake, Purple Push Pop, and E85 with cult followings of their own. As Matt Jackson writes in Top 12 Wedding Cake strains of all time, Wedding Cake has made its name due to its “prismatic, colorful buds and blend of vanilla, fuel, and doughy flavors.”
Purple will never die. While its heydays of popularity and access have long ended, plenty of consumers coast to coast still seek it and its strain progeny out. Jeffrey Oropeza of Oakland’s Dark Heart Nursery told us about GDP’s allure back in 2021, saying it “has always been held in high esteem due to its dark coloration and taste, but its effect is what makes it truly special…GDP just simply makes things stop hurting.” That combination of niche terps and pain management fits right in at the end of a tumultuous year.
I’ve been writing these bestselling strains lists for a couple years now, and I’ve never seen so many sativas on the list. Durban Poison is the sole landrace strain here, and the most intensely uplifting and energizing pick of the bunch. Durban Poison comes from South Africa, and has been growing in American soil for decades. It has a unique peppercorn nose, so sharp and skunky that it nearly burns the nose.
Let’s get it straight—the movie Pineapple Express predates the strain, and not vice versa. The onus is on the strain then, to match the zany, full-bellied laughs that come when watching Seth Rogen, James Franco, and a supporting cast of comedians get into increasingly dangerous (and thus hilarious) situations due to the weed that smells like God’s, well. Pineapple Express the real strain is Trainwreck x Hawaiian, a blend of tropical tang and turpentine. A review from 2010 calls it “The dopest dope I’ve ever smoked,” and one from 2024 says it’s “the king of strains.
Ring the alarm! Strawberry Cough has entered the chat. This strain, despite its many years in stores, still carries mystique. It’s not entirely clear who initially bred it, and its genetics may or may not be Strawberry Fields x Haze. Either way, it still intrigues consumers to this day, whether it’s to lift the fog of anxiety or enjoy its skunky berry terps.