It’s officially 2015, and weed strains nowadays are as plentiful and colorful as those retro Jordan sneakers of yesteryear. There’s all kinds of Kushes here: Purple this and blue that, that hypebeasts salivate over whenever they hit the open market. But the truth of the matter is that I’m an old-school cat who lives for that OG shit. Sure, I love today’s genetically modified and engineered strains of ganja whose single purpose is to leave us coma-toasted and in a haze for days, but I’m a Kings County Viking (that’s Brooklyn, to the rest of the world). I still light my “branches” with matches. That’s just how I do. And while I do live off that new-age leaf and appreciate what it brings to the table, I also miss the taste and smell of some of the original ’90s bud. Here’s a list of the traumas I would love to see retro’ed in my hood for nostalgia’s sake…

Chronic

Made famous by the legendary Dr. D-R-E, Chronic weed was considered top-of-the-line tree stumps at a time when the only kind of weed that was available in my hood was stem-and-seeds-filled skunk, a.k.a. regs (as in “regulars” or oREGanos”). That Chron-Chron had us coughing up lungs to the extent where we swore we were able to breathe easier afterwards. Now that was the original medicinal marijuana.

Chocolate

This bittersweet bud would simply melt in your mouth and leave you with sticky hands. An absolute must for date nights, Chocolate Thai was known as an aphrodisiac amongst the stoner community. We’d puff on the Hershey to get some shotgun kisses from the missus and end the night with a Snickers to her kisser. It almost never failed.

Buddha

Puffing on Buddha used to bring peace and tranquility to the wildest of men. The thick yellow smoke of clarity was a sight to behold. Philosophies were thought up in project hallways, and stoners wrote all kinds of street rules to abide by. Legend has it Biggie wrote the 10 Crack Commandments while high on the Buddha lye.

Tyson

This was legendary simply because the weed was compressed and shaped into the form of a single dice. It was sold for one year in Do or Die Bed-Stuy before that spot got raided (a hex on the house of thy snitch! A hex, I say!). There were times when newbies would enter the Tyson cipher and weren’t ready for what was about to hit ’em. Straight one-hitter quitter types. Rival spots tried to counter with “Holyfield,” but it was nowhere near as potent as the Champ.

Hydro

The original “Oh shit! There’s orange hairs and tiny crystals on the weed” weed. Until then, every single bud I’d ever seen was purely green or brown. So when Hydro hit the hood with the force of a tidal wave it left everyone wet, if not drenched, in its wake. We used to walk 10-deep to the spot for a single dime bag just to make sure no one pinched it on the way back to the block. That’s how fiended out we were for this product.

White Widow

No lie, I remember back in high school heads copping this specific kind of bud whenever they went to hookup with a certain shorty. She made men of boys, and boys of girls—she was wild. Not to mention that only one cat had White Widow in that hood, and thanks to that young lady, he was able to push a Land Cruiser by the end of that school year. Talk about burning rubber(s).

Pu-ree

Shout-outs to my Dominicans in Washington Heights who made this one of their signature products in the ’90s. There was always debate as to whether or not Pu-ree was just Hydro renamed due to its similarities in both physical and “psychological” properties. Either way, it was a great product.

Northern Lights

The fuzzy fix. This was very hard to find, and if you did, the dimes were so skimpy you didn’t want to share because it was like having a few squares left in a public bathroom. You wouldn’t want to spare a single square if you had to get yourself right, would you? Neither did we. You’d have to have at the very least $5 on it if you wanted to enter the cipher and even then it would be a tough decision to make.

Mango Pina

As best as I can recall, this was the first fruit-flavored ganja strain in the mid ’90s. It wasn’t particularly strong, but it delivered a mellow and relaxing state of mind whenever it was burned down.

• Branson
  
  The stuff legends wrote about. And when I say legends, I mean hip-hop legends. Notorious B.I.G., Redman, Rakim, etc. would spit a few bars about weed from Branson here and there in their cuts. I can’t say I’ve ever had the pleasure of tasting this legendary herb, but I do know that if it was good enough for hardcore hip-hop stoners to big-up in their songs, then this strain must have been off the charts!