Apparently, there are multiple MACs. I used MAC #4 shake when I was trying to get my Levo machine to work. I’ve seen MAC around a few times at dispensaries as well. I thiiiiink I had it once a long time ago?
Be aware there are four unique phenotypes out there, but the frequency with which I feel like I see MAC #1 around always led me to assume this was a pretty mundane strain. Not bad, but mundane in the hey I’m a KIA sPoRt uTiLiTy veHICLE.
Boy, I couldn’t have been more wrong, at least as it pertains to MAC #1, which was grown by the Toyota-reliable Evan’s Creek Farms and tested at 22.98% THC and picked up at the ever-drool-inducing Oregrown Portland location.
In retrospect, the fact that there are so many variants should not be interpreted as it being “average.” It should be interpreted as, wow, so many people like this strain, there were this many phenotypes that all made it to market. Must be a consistently solid performer!
I can oftentimes let the contrarian in me get the best of me, and a half to regularly remind myself not to judge books by their covers unless it’s an IPA at New Seasons, then that’s the only way you’re getting out of that damn grocery store in under an hour.
There’s no denying the economic proof of this strain’s sheer popularity. Newbies let the weed geek them while stoners geek out on the weed. The world of cannabis seems to be never-ending deep, and in the deep waters of that abyss are consumers that know how to prize quality.
As such, dollars vote and Miracle Alien Cookies is a fan favorite, a strain of the people for the people. Viva La MAC!
Yes, sometimes the thing everyone likes IS actually that good, and you shouldn’t NOT try it simply to anti-conform to some fictional universal where literally everyone else is dumb, and so is everything else they like is dumb, except the things you like; those are all good.
Spaghetti-Os, Carhartt, Backwoods, sometimes the mainstream is the rain stream, and who doesn’t like it when it rains cause going with the flow is where it is at?
Now I won’t be buying Crocs anytime soon, but I’m making a mental note to try some more of these “perennially popular” strains instead of just simping for the hype strains like a moth to an electric lamp.
So that’s the setting for this review, it came in with low expectations for no reason and was shown how absolutely foolish of an assumption that was.
Appearance: Art Museum Shit
This is a complex nug. There are many different colors, all finely dispersed throughout the entire structure of the nug. It indeed looks like something an alien traveler, having visited earth and enjoyed partaking in our cannabis, would cook up in his laboratory.
This is 64-bit pixel art to 8-bit pixel art (unless he had direct access to Capitulator’s personal harvest), as an alien would obviously have access to technology to produce a logically perfect nug in a set of very observable ways.
Smell: Art Museum of Fruit
It’s the smell of the inside of a metal pencil grinder, as you’d find in a school, tempered with a sweet overly-ripe pineapple aroma that leaves my nose a little confused but curious for another whiff nonetheless.
Underneath the middle pencil shaving and graphite notes and under the sweet pineapple top notes, there is an eArThY, almost oak wood-like damp dankness that says this girl is here to play.
The smell is interesting and unique, to say the least. Neither diesel fumes nor dark kush sweetness make themselves the stars of the show. This play features a different cast of actors I’m not particularly familiar with but who act in a way that makes me want to go check out their other work.
‘Teasingingly’ would be the way to summarize the nasal experience here. It’s not a straightforward fruit bomb, nor is it a “woah, that’s loud dude” gas station, either. There is seriousness with just a touch of sweetness.
The sweetness is dark, like molasses or blackberry flower honey soaked deep into the core of the nug, encased in a bud structure sharing the terpene profile of a young oak tree, wet and clean earth.
Sensation: A Quality Two-Stager
Go to Google and type in “MAC #1 Strain Review,” and see how many unique Reddit posts come back for this one strain alone. It’s nuts.
Are you still with me? If you spent 15 minutes reading through dozens upon dozens of forum posts, you would walk away knowing one thing about MAC #1. Everyone fuckin loves this shit!
Now the frequency with which I feel like I’ve heard this strain makes sense; it’s because everyone likes it, and I think I know why upon smoking it.
MAC #1 is a complex high and falls into a classic “two-stage progression” wherein it contains within its experience two distinct sensations.
The first stage is upon initial hit and impact, where you get high pretty quick, I’d say kind of like if you hopped in an already inflated hot air balloon, and they just let go of the ropes, and up you went. That’s not to make it sound scary; it’s just to say the high gets on with, um, urgent aplomb.
Once at your cruising altitude and you can feel yourself leveling out in this mental state, you can take many paths.
You can retreat inwards in your own thoughts and just run an internal dialogue in your head, OR you can engage in a deep and continuous conversation with someone, OR you can watch a Sunday night football game with the analytical intensity of a sideline coach, OR you can cook yourself a dinner out of thin air with zero planning OR….
My point here is the initial sensation, the peak of the high, to me, feels kind of like your brain is presented with a Rubik’s cubes of paths forward, with each “color” on this metaphorical cube representing a different type of high experience as briefly summarized in the above paragraph.
The result is a rather dazzling experience, a buffet of ways to proceed through the next hour or so, depending on your tolerance. Every time I smoke MAC #1, I do something slightly different, and it’s a calmly enjoyable blast every time.
The second stage isn’t quite as exciting and consists of a long tail taper town into tiredness. In a way, I suppose this is truly a balanced hybrid with a highly stimulatory experience up front, I’m presuming, from the sativa elements and then a long, calm, safe descent back down to earth.
I can see why this weed would appeal to a lot of people. It’s kind of a Swiss army knife of a strain, being able to plug many different holes, gang-banging your brain from every which orifice it so pleases.
As such, similar to its appearance, I’d say the distinct two-stage high, with most importantly, a pretty multifaceted initial sensation, is reminiscent of something an alien would grow.
Ripping a gram of this on some alien spaceship, getting stared at, and staring back at a legit alien, would feel like a perfectly appropriate selection for the experience.
I’ve smoked through 75% of this quarter ounce. Some of you can do the math on that. I’ve smoked it out of a bowl (water pipe) once, our StonedWare porcelain pipe once, and the rest have all been joints.
I smoked this both during the day and in the evening. I’ve smoked at stressful times and in calm times. Solo and in public.
I really wanted to put this strain to the test because of its popularity. I feel a rally car driver, just driving wide open throttle through bouncy ass gravel backroads in the middle of Scandinavia somewhere.
And like those rally cars, MAC #1 has stood up to the task the entire time in all the settings in which we sessioned. Definitely going to pick this up again in the future. It surprised me, similar to Five Star and Cold Snap (each in their own way), as an unexpectedly quality high. I guess this is just good genetics!
If you spend any time trying to read up on MAC #1s origins, there’s a lot of piecemeal information out there, which, who knows what percent is actually true, but one of the rumors was this was a super closely guarded phenotype that was gifted only to those in possession of the skills required to give this purebred draft horse the environment and care required to be a beer wagon puller.
In star form, this is a 5/5 star review. Is it my favorite strain of all time? No. Is it damn good and worthy of being potentially YOUR favorite? Yes, most definitely yes.
I’ve been smoking on Evan’s Creek Farms for quite a while, and they are always growing classics, and I had a quarter ounce of their Apple Fritter earlier this year that was caramel green apple sucker in bud form.
So if you see Evan’s Creek Farms in your dispo give them a peruse; I’d happily recommend this farm to anyone, and if you find their MAC #1, make sure to get at least a gram to try 😉
