Cannabis Cup XXIV

[Davey Boy 2.0]

[jaybone]

Well played!

[Booche]

I hope Velvet learned from his mother's teachings and wore clean underwear.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

heady vibes!

[Esau.]

I hope Velvet learned from his mother's teachings and wore clean underwear.

Just received an email about this. That sucks.

[Velvet]

Day III

Another extended sleep had me pretty caught up when I hit the button to open the curtains this morning. I made a coffee in the machine and enjoyed a powerful shower.

We're checked into a five star place downtown called the Grand Amrath. It's a Gothic building with admirable brickwork that looms over the water just around the corner from central station. The rooms are modern with eighteen-foot ceilings and floor-to-roof windows, the bathroom has a frosted glass door, a giant tub and ultra-modern fixtures. The restocked minibar is included with the room, and they do a fair job of it too. It's quite frankly one of the nicest rooms I've stayed in, and we're here all week.

Spent the first couple of hours of the day around the bend at Voyagers coffee shop chasing the cobwebs from my brain and putting them right back in. In the early afternoon Carstairs and I headed along the main drag to Central Station and caught the shuttle bus the the Cannabis Cup expo to catch a seminar and make another round of the booths.

The bus was very, very smoky. It's amazing just how much marijuana can be consumed in such a short amount of time and by such a diverse group of people. Tell you, these kids can roll a pretty mean joint. Looking around nobody even seemed that high. There's absolutely no way the bus driver isn't on at least a major contact high, but just like always we got where we were going just fine.

There was supposed to be a Dab-athon hash oil Olympics but it had been canceled. I saw a few people getting smoke-bomb hits in the crowd while DNA Genetics hosted a growers seminar on the stage. The presentation was informal and deeply informative, a Q&A that was at times baffling and at others quite enlightening. These growers develop some of the most enviable marijuana strains in the world, including one of this year's early Cannabis Cup favourites, Kosher Kush, and Cup attendees were having a field day at the microphone gleaning any insider information they could get.

We wandered around and grabbed a nasty burger and a few beers, but with the booths already well-explored we soon found ourselves back on the bus downtown. A quick stab into the minibar back at the hotel and we headed very slowly towards the evening's show at the Melkweg, with about three hours to kill.

We started at Green Place (the reader should imply a requisite stop at Voyagers on our way to and from anything) where we ran into another mother/son combo here for the Cannabis Cup, this time from northern Alberta. We swapped samples and made Cup talk; you meet nice folks here.

We decided to hit a few more places before the show, and after stopping for a splendid chicken shawarma (my first non-burger food since arriving in Amsterdam) we found Rookies, my old haunt from my last trip to the 'Dam.

Rookies isn't entered in the cup so we just stayed for a quick nostalgia joint for my benefit. It was as I remembered it; roomy and relaxed with some good chill music. I see why I liked the place.

We checked out a few more Cup shops, Rokerij and Dolphins, and poked our heads into a couple of others that weren't so inviting. After a good rest at Dolphins we found the Melkweg and filed in for the night's free concert, B-Real from Cypress Hill.

The show was late in starting (of course), and while the crowd waited they were treated to a film touting the many joys and splendors of Mary Jane. We grabbed some beers and sat outside the main room to smoke joints and wait for the show. We found ourselves next to our motorcycle enthusiast friend from yesterday's breakfast, found some quick common ground and killed the wait quite effectively. When the show started it was handshakes and farewells, and a fight back to the bar area.

We got some more beers and tried to enjoy B-Real from the discomfort of our perch from the bar. That proved impossible and spotting a couple of staff members from Voyagers partying nearby we joined them on the floor. It was much more comfortable and a fine spot to watch the show from.

Though B. Real isn't really my thing I gotta say he was kickin' it out. Even a Deadhead like myself recognised the best of his Cypress Hill material, like I Wanna Get High, Lick A Shot, and the crowd-pumping Hits From The Bong. The gun-centric show was tight and aggressive, with a fine dj display mid-show and a crowd in constant puff-mode.

By the time B. Real closed his set with Insane In The Brain even I wanted to pop a cap in someone's ass. Whether or not that had anything to do with our eventual stumble home through the red light district is anybody's guess. The lights in the Milkweg went up and hundreds of us finished up beers and phatties and spilled out into the mild Amsterdam evening.

With a nod to our earlier sojourn to Rookies, we wandered into the place Carstairs whiled away most of his time when he last visited the city almost two decades ago, a cozy spot called Ricks. We got a couple of beers and hit the smoking room where we met an Irish couple who were killing the evening after missing their flight. We managed to share a joint or two before the place closed down on us.

On the way back to the hotel we found ourselves on the cusp of the red light district. Another of the very unique attractions Amsterdam has to offer, and one I'm wholly uninterested in, there is no denying the fascination of seeing prostitution happen before your very eyes..

Sex is on sale in every window, a 3/8†pane of glass separating a gawking parade of tourists from one nearly naked woman after another. Stop for an instant and a fake nail will tap on the glass trying to lure you in while the other hand holds a cell phone to a lipsticked mouth simultaneously engaged in phone sex. Primal urge for a price and they are busy. I saw more than one door open to welcome or eject a patron, and many other windows with the curtains drawn.

Whatever turns your crank.

We left the human zoo and found our way safely home. We sat finishing off the minibar and lamenting our decision to not smoke in the room. When we had checked in there were only nonsmoking rooms available, but we called down the next day to see if a smoker had opened up. We figured hash would be okay in a room that allows tobacco and were disappointed to find that a transfer would require an upgrade, an extra 50 euros a day.

“Hold on,†the lady says. “Let's see if the windows in your room open, and then you can smoke. Yes, I see they open, but they are too tall and the concierge would have to come with a stick to open it and close it when you are done. Should I call the concierge?â€

We opted for not, thinking it too problematic and resigned ourselves to not smoke in the room. But here it was 2am and drunk. We noticed people smoking on the balcony across the way out the windows and got rolling. The door at the end of the hall said “Emergency Only†but I was drunk enough to try it and nothing happened so we hit it and lit it.

Holding the door open I felt an air pressure change indicating someone had entered our hallway. Here came the concierge, explaining that the alarm was going off downstairs. We explained our difficulty and bless his heart, at two AM he went and got the stick. Try as he might he couldn't get the old windows open, but shrugging he said we could smoke in here if we wanted, if we didn't mind the smell of our own smoke.

“The smell of weed takes about a day to go away...†he said out of the blue. “We're here until Friday!†Carstairs and I sang in unison. “Well then there's no problem,†said the world's greatest five star concierge. “And don't worry about the smoke alarm, it won't go off. Goodnight.â€

And a good night it was. And late.

[edger]

Ha. I hope you tipped him

[Velvet]

Day IV

It was a hard wake up today, this city can really get under one's skin. We had a bit of a day ahead of us so we tried not to dally too long, though there were certainly some coffee shop stops in there.

Our first major mission was to take in the Van Gogh museum. Not only is it a great opportunity to see a vast collection by one of the modern masters, it offers a good travel story for the less heady folks back home.

We hopped a tram for the first time and we found Amsterdam's ubiquitous urban rail system comfortable, simple, and remarkably efficient.

We pre-bought our tickets at the hotel and strolled right into the museum. The four-storey structure offers an open forum for patrons to stroll by an admirable collection of Vincent's work. The information panels provide a glimpse into the stunning life of the hardest working man in the art business, and while one meanders by piece after piece of cartoonish brilliance it becomes harder and harder to believe this guy never sold a single thing. The movement he could imply from a blast of colored pellets is still unmatched. Even having a loving brother that was one of Europe's biggest art dealers couldn't get him no satisfaction, and a couple of bullets to the chest brought it all to a close. What a story, what a man, what an artist.

We decompressed at the Bulldog with a snack a beer and a smoke and window shopped our way downtown. I picked up a cool Euro-style bike lock and Carstairs found some souvenirs for his kids. We found ourselves at 420 coffeeshop where the vibe is oak-paneled relaxed and the music is 60's heady and FZ. It's the first place I've found that plays exactly the music I'm hoping to hear, where the standard coffeeshop plays strictly rap and hip-hop.

We went back to Burgerbar for dinner, opting for the upscale wagyu beef patty. It was a disappointment compared to last time, and greatly undercooked. Looking at the time we realised we were under the gun to get to the expo in time for the daily 4:20 ceremony so we gave it a pass and headed to the hotel.

During the requisite stop at Voyagers we heard the expo had been raided, just at the time we were intending to be there. It was sobering news so we sat down to get unsober again and try and pick up what details we could.

It seems dozens of police entered the convention hall and rounded everyone up, seizing pot at the exhibitor booths and searching the pockets of all attendees, confiscating any and all drugs they found. The word is this action was taken in retaliation of yesterday's Dab-athon fiasco, where authorities had shut down the event's oil-smoking competition, hash oil being a controlled drug in The Netherlands. The dabbers just shrugged off the warning and took their contest to the aisles, offering up oil samples to judges throughout the afternoon, to the ire of the watching police.

The employees at Voyagers saw the bust as a pretty bad development, while the buzz around the coffeeshop tables was mainly of bewilderment. We come to Amsterdam not just to smoke pot, as it is a plant readily available in most places in the world. We come here to smoke it with a sense of freedom and the raid was a sharp reminder that freedom still eludes us, even here in The Netherlands. Marijuana is still and always has been illegal here in Amsterdam, and though the tolerance of it's use and sale is prominent and well-known, it is still just tolerance, and the authorities are free to decide when to tolerate it when not to.

There was talk that the Dilated Peoples show at Milkweg may be raided tonight, and the shopkeeps seemed confident that at least some coffeeshops would be visited by authorities, though we were assured that it was a fairly common occurrence and the patrons were generally ignored, with the police more interested in making sure the coffee shop doesn't exceed it's 500g limit of smoke on hand.

I checked the computer back at the hotel and High Times had sent out an email to judges informing us that the evening;s concert was indeed on as scheduled, and a contingency plan was in place for voting should the expo no longer be available. As I've come to expect with all things Cannabis Cup, the official response was swift and informative.

Walking out of the hotel my heart went cold as I saw Voyagers was closed up tight. Maybe this was worse than I thought. I walked up to the door where a sign said they were at Milkweg. Of course. It's a small place and they sell the featured bud from DNA Genetics, the hosts of tonight's party. Whew.

We ended up sticking to the downtown area and whiling the evening away at a few coffeeshops, starting with beers and smokes and snacks at Barneys where Derry the owner made an announcement that the expo would be running as usual the next day. We eventually staggered back to 420 cafe where we sat in the window trying to empty our pockets the best we could until the joint closed on us.

We bee-lined back to the hotel as best we could in a city impeded by curved streets, canals, bridges, and a red light district.

We closed out the minibar and took advantage of our new in-room smoking privileges and when I laid my head down to rest I went out so fast you'd swear an anesthesiologist was hovering over me.

[Velvet]

Day V

We were surprised to find Voyagers still closed when we walked by this morning. No doubt they are recovering from last night's concert, and we're sure to see them soon so we wandered over to 420 cafe to start the day.

We found our old spot in the window and spent an hour letting the day settle in. It was around noon when we got moving, idling around the corner to wait for the expo shuttle.

I swear that bus is about the most concentrated blazebox in the city. No sooner are the seats filled when dozens of huge spliffs are lit with dozens more being rolled. Everybody arrives at the conference pretty chill.

Inside the atmosphere was much more subdued than previous visits. It seems yesterday's raid was keeping some people away, the crowd was cut almost in half, and this on the final voting day of the competition. This was the first time I could see from one side of the room to the other, there was so little smoke in the room.

If you looked close you could see that some booths were still offering up free vapor samples, but the free-for-all feeling that we had gotten previously was gone due in no small part to yesterday's police action. There were some notable empty booths as well; BC Buds, Norcal Seeds, and Hitman Glass were among the few tables that didn't reopen today.

We grabbed some beers and took a seat in time for a seminar on marijuana globalisation. It was a good presentation that was liberally peppered with references to Wednesday's police raid. Midway through the talk the PA cut in with an interruption. “We have received information that the police may be returning to Borchland.†Again, I went cold.

There's that old fear again, that nagging little zing that reminds you that having a good time has it's risks. You got to keep an eye out and be careful. And it's exactly those feelings that we mean to leave behind when we visit Amsterdam. We immediately got off our asses so we could vote and get the hell out of there.

The voting area was busy, and with good reason. For many, the main benefit of obtaining a pass for the Cannabis Cup is the honor of voting for what will reign as the best marijuana strain in the world for the next year. It's a heady responsibility and the main point of attending the Cup.

There were six categories we could mark our X in. Best booth, best new product, best glass, best import hash, best Nederhash, and best weed. The most popular booths were the ones pumping out the nine-foot volcano bags of vaporized pot, so I voted Barneys (the beer garden didn't count as a booth). For best new product I voted for Smashtrays, a rubberized ashtray that won't break your bowl when you clean out the ashes. The guy at the booth had a lot of energy and sold out of nearly all his stock.

Best glass was a no-brainer with the obvious choice going to the amazingly elaborate machine gun bowl-fantastico. I voted Liberty Melt for the Nederhash and Moroc for the import, and then it was down to the biggie. Best Picture. And my vote for the greatest pot in the world was...

...unsure. There was so much to take in, so much to smoke. Does one pick on flavour or stone or combo? Of course the stuff you sample earlier in the day will work differently (better) than the rest, and was it suspect that I was preferring mainly strains I tried earlier in the week? There's no set criteria to work from, so it's every judge for himself to pick how to pick.

One thing's for sure, it's basically impossible to judge the Cannabis Cup fairly. With 31 strains entered in the pot category alone one can hardly be expected to purchase and try every entry with a fair and balanced brain. And it's pricey too, a gram of Cup weed usually runs from twelve to fifteen Euros ($17-$21) and what are you going to do with 31 half bags when it's time to fly home? The fact that some coffeeshops hand out free samples is likely to skew things a bit as well, filling a judges pockets with free bud diminishes the possibility that they'll try the competition. If every entry was lined up offering up volcano bags side-by-side it would be easier to judge, but such is not our charge.

After three trips to the expo visiting every booth and scouring around town checking out about fifteen coffeeshops and smoking just a mad, mad amount of weed, I decided to vote for the pot being pumped out of our local little spot, the Kosher Kush available at Voyagers. It's a tasty indica with a nice aftertaste and a strong buzz and even though we tried it the first day it still cut through the haze when we tried some later in the week.

I filled in my little boxes and handed the pen to Carstairs. He copied almost all my picks the bastard, but after all it was his pen.

Our judges lanyards were numbered and your anonymous ballot required your judge number. The pollster accepted my ballot and stamped a hole through the number in my pass. Seems pretty fair.

We bee-lined it to the door ahead of any potential policing and got on the canni-bus for the last time. Joints were smoked, idle chat went back and forth, but the scene had shifted. Perhaps we were all getting tired after a trying week, but I don't think I'm the only one that's felt a bubble burst. Though there wasn't an officer in sight, the police presence could be felt.

Carstairs and I went back to the hotel to attend to some business and prime up on minibar. Back on the bricks we were further dismayed to see that Voyagers was still closed, still ominously hanging the same “Gone to Milkweg†sign in the window.

We started at 420 cafe and made a feeble attempt at working our way towards the Hash and Hemp Museum. We hit the Bulldog along the way, got to the museum and decided against it, and after a tasty chain burger at Chipsy King we found ourselves back at Carstairs' old spot, Ricks.

It was beers and roll-yer-owns as we tried to tie one on in preparation for the final Cannabis Cup event. We eventually rolled up to my old joint Rookies, where the coffee stopped my drunken slide in it's tracks. We rolled a few for the show and walked over to the Milkweg. We got in just in time to get a beer at the back (the side bar was closed) and find a spot on the floor when they started handing out awards.

The room was much sparser than Tuesday's B-Real show and decorated with lots of NO SMOKING signs. As the awards were being handed out there was a scuffle behind me. I turned around and saw three men standing around a freshly lit joint smoldering on the floor, the three of them shrugging their shoulders as a security guard put her arm on one guy and called for reinforcement. Just like back home. I turned back to the stage.

The awards ceremony was loose but moved along well, much to the credit of MC Dan Skye. DJ Logic supplied the unremarkable music as presenters came and went and a rotating cast came onstage to accept first, second, and third place medals in each category.

There was an undeniable link between the major advertisers and the winners, and it seemed Big Buddha, Barney's, or Green Place were up there for almost everything. There were several categories that were voted on by only an elite group of growers, plus a couple of Special Achievement-type awards.

The winners:

Best Booth: Barneys Farm (Barneys)

Best New Product: Grinder Card (Green House)

Neiderhash Cup: Liberty Melt (Barneys)

Import Hash Cup: Exodus Cream Cheese (Green House)

Seed Co. Hash Cup: Tahoe OG Kush Wax (Cali Connection)

Seed. Co. Hybrid Cup: Holy Grail Kush (DNA Genetics/Reserva Privada Colorado)

Sativa Cup: Moonshine Haze (Rare Dankness Seed Co.)

Indica Cup: Kosher Kush (Reserva Privada Colorado)

Cannabis Cup: Liberty Haze (Barneys)

So there it is friends, the best pot in the world you'll find this year is a sativa called Liberty Haze. Get some in your lungs and you may just feel a piece of what we've been at all week.

As soon as the ceremony ended the place cleared out, there was no party to be had. With no smoking in the room nobody wanted to stick around anyway. We went back to Rookies to smoke the joints we had rolled there earlier and soon found ourselves at a cool live music bar called Waterhole where a five piece band was tearing up Rage and Nirvana tunes to a sweaty crowd. We knew there was little hope in us getting drunk enough to truly regret it so we bade the place leave and stumbled to Dampkring for a nightcap.

Okay the real nightcap came back in the hotel room as we cleared out the minibar for the last time. In honor of the Liberty Melt win I rolled my remaining free sample into a single phatty and ran a bath. We enjoyed our last night at the Grand Amrath in decadent style and slept one more night on their marshmallow pillows.

The Cup was a great time and an event very worthy of checking out, but saving a day to decompress afterwords is highly (ha!) recommended.