The Review

Welcome back to the Red Bench, it’s time for another Red Bench Review!

This week we are looking at a strain called Cherry Punch from Coastal Sun Farm, a cannabis farm near Santa Cruz that has really impressed me with their ethos. They are an organic farm that believes in regenerative growing, raising herb in a way that doesn’t deplete the soil. Instead, they are creating an ecologically sustainable system of land management – very impressive stuff!

I bought this eighth at Desert’s Finest in Desert Hot Springs for just $35.00 – a very nice price and a part of Coastal Sun’s policy of making their herb economically available to everyone. Top shelf herb, at a near bargain price – what’s not to love about that?!

Cherry Punch is a cross of Cherry AK-47 and Purple Punch. You don’t have to hang out with me long to learn that Purple Punch is one of my favorite strains. This jar contained herb with 26% THC, which is pretty strong, and, of course, that makes me very happy.

The Smell And Taste

I picked up this jar several weeks ago and once I opened the jar during the video review, I had a moment of thinking, I can’t believe I had herb that smells like this just sitting around here – all that skunky goodness and deliciousness…

It was truly the smell that got me on this herb. While there were notes of cherry, what really caught my attention was this deep skunky smell hovering like a base beat to the cherry notes. The skunky smell took me back to the 1980s, and started to get me excited. I truly miss the 80s kind of skunk buds – they were iconic and loom large in my memories.

As I poured the nugs out on the tray I could see Coastal Sun had packed several mediums and a handful of smalls into the jar. I was nearly lost in an ecstasy over the skunk smell, so the fact that several of the mediums needed a better trim almost escaped my notice.

The medium green, dense nugs cut up beautifully, exhibiting their very nice cure. I couldn’t stop smelling the cut-up nugs – deep earthy, skunky, sulfuric, diesel aromas with just a hint of cherry. I was so excited by the high quality of the herb that I was ready to smoke it even before the camera rolled for the video review! So far the look, the smell, and the fine cure were all checking off the right boxes.

I savored the taste from my first bong hit. Oh my, that is some exceptional flavor – earthy, a hint of burned wood, some diesel… and skunk! But no cherry? I was a bit surprised… I was really expecting a fruit juice and cherry flavor. I did experience a little cherry later smoking a different nug, but it was very subtle. But that’s okay with me, I prefer the tastes and smells I experienced!

The Effects

And then the effects hit me… like a fog quickly rolling in until everything was covered in a marijuana fuzz. I love the fuzzies, that feeling that the herb is insulating all your nerves. This one was thick with fuzzies. It got so fuzzy that I almost forgot I had a body for a while as I sat there at the Red Bench, spacing out.

Spacing out – that is the best use of this herb, and that is not a put-down at all, no sir! This herb hit me with an “oh wooooowwww…” kind-of-vibe, that feeling like it’s okay to just let it go and space-out. Little details in my surroundings became very distracting and interesting, my mind became wonderfully unfocused, and then I remembered when I had felt this particular kind of high… back in the 1980s.

To quickly digress… there are so many different kinds of highs – the OG Kush high, the GG4 high, the Mendo Breath high, the Cookies high, the Indica high, the Sativa high – and so many variations of those highs… and a thousand and one other highs produced by all those other strains out there. That is one of the things I love about this plant – the variety is endless, but individual strains often deliver a consistent feel you can count on.

The 1980s high, as I experienced it… it was a big, airy high – very unfocused and full of the fuzzies. It had a euphoria to it that comes from smoking well-cured, green buds with a delightfully skunky aroma and flavor. It gave me that feeling that once I’d smoked, walking was going to be very difficult because I was going to be thinking about walking too much. It always made me feel like I didn’t want to go in a brightly lit grocery store and deal with un-stoned people.

As I said, this one took me back to the 1980s – I didn’t want to have to get up and think about walking, and I wasn’t going near a grocery store! I was so delightfully drifting in my mind, and I felt great about it. I remember thinking while I was high that people don’t give themselves permission to get stoned nearly enough, and it seemed like such a profound thought. Yeah, it’s okay just to be stoned…

All-in-all, I was so pleased to remember the goodness of, what for me, is an old-school high. The experience this herb gave me, made me immediately put it to the top my list of herbs I’ve smoked this year – look, smell, flavor and effects – all very exceptional.

If you can find this strain, grown by Coastal Sun Farm, buy it – I would, in a heartbeat! I checked the Desert Finest menu immediately after filming the review, planning on making the trek to buy some jars the next morning – but they were sold out! Apparently I’m not the only one that thought this was an exceptional strain! 🙂

Until next week, best of health.

The Lowdown