The Art of Carmel

Today we have a special guest, Drew Lian, a Master grower and voice of Carmel Cannabis cultivation.   Drew will take us on an intriguing journey, sharing how he went from being a cannabis enthusiast with limited resources to becoming a master grower, all without the help of the internet. 

We also have John Strauss from Carmel Sales joining us, as we delve into their shared passion for cannabis cultivation and marketing of one of the best brands in Canada, winner of the Inaugural 'Space Traveller' Award for Best Flower! Carmel Cannabis is on the Pod. 

Together, they will discuss their experiences and strategies in marketing cannabis products. Have you ever wondered how a strain goes from a private seed collection to the market? Drew and John will reveal the meticulous process they follow to ensure they select the best products and how they overcome the challenge of finding quality genetics. 

Additionally, we will explore Drew's love / hate relationship with COAs (Certificates of Analysis) and the excitement of launching new products, such as the recently released 14 gram bag of Animal Face. 

But that's not all - we'll also discover how Billy and Drew utilize technology to maximize their plant yields and create optimal growing conditions. From the innovative 'Aroya' system to the power higher yields and truly an iconic strain 'Animal Face' to even higher levels, we will delve into the tools and tactics they employ to thrive in the current regulatory environment. And of course, we cannot forget to discuss their newest strains, including one that is said to be one of the most gas yet. 

So sit back, relax, and join us for an in-depth exploration of the captivating world of cannabis cultivation and marketing.

Transcript

Sean Kady:
I'm Sean Kady.

Charlie Kady:
And I'm Charlie.

Sean Kady:
And this is HigherOrbit.
Charlie, another night programme. I think we haven't done a night show in a while.

Charlie Kady:
Huge episode. The store is open. I can't believe it's episode 12. I'm just taking that in. We've got a big one today. Two important people as far as we're concerned in the legal cannabis market. Huge shout out. We got the homies, John Strauss, sales manager, and master grower Drew Lian from Carmel Cannabis in the house, Sean.

Sean Kady:
Woo. I'm fucking fired up, man. I'm really happy to have you guys here today. We've been looking forward to this date for a long time on the calendar and with good reason. You're our first master grower on the show, Drew, and we're really proud of that, obviously because we would think that you just grow a lot of fire, and you're from a hometown hero boy from Toronto and just an hour from the city.

Drew Lian:
I'm so fired up. Thanks so much guys for having us.

Sean Kady:
Welcome.

Drew Lian:
I'm really grateful for this opportunity to share our story and thanks so much for the love and support. Yeah, look forward to hanging out.

Sean Kady:
Yeah, man. I guess we'll kind of start, I'm going to ask you some questions later, John, about that.

John Strauss:
Yeah, of course.

Sean Kady:
I just wanted to ask Drew what got you into cannabis? How did you become a master grower? Were you a sensei to someone else? How did you learn your craft, and how did you get where you are?

Drew Lian:
Honestly, when I was coming out, there was not really any mentors. Everybody was lone wolfs. Nobody was really sharing secrets or tech.

Sean Kady:
Okay. Legacy days.

Drew Lian:
Legacy days.

Sean Kady:
Even before the Internet and Subreddit and [inaudible 00:01:42]-

Drew Lian:
100%. Maybe bulletin boards. There was some forums that were popping off, but if you ran into a tough situation, whenever you'd go to the grow store, you'd like maybe ask the owner, "Have you ever heard any other guys talking about this?" And if he hadn't, he would just tell you to stop back in a couple of weeks, and he would ask around for you. So there was no Instagram, there was no YouTube. That's a game changer. Now, you can learn how to grow pretty good in a year if you're just on Instagram and on YouTube. But I bought the Grow Bible, and I think it was in 1998.

Sean Kady:
I've heard of the Grow Bible. That's pretty famous literature, I think, in the grow world, right?

Drew Lian:
100%. But the book was expensive by itself, but after reading it, I had no idea how much the equipment was going to cost, though. I read the book, but I didn't start growing just because it was so expensive at the time. I had the book for maybe I'd say seven years before I actually started growing.

Sean Kady:
Did you always have a green thumb? Did you grow other stuff, or is it just cannabis as the crop, obviously, to make money at the time?

Drew Lian:
100%. That's what got me into it. My dad, he always had a home garden, and we would always be interested in what he was growing. But it's funny, because they were so against cannabis growing up, and over the last 10, 15 years, I couldn't get them out of my garden, so.

Sean Kady:
Really?

Drew Lian:
Yeah.

Sean Kady:
Oh, interesting.

Drew Lian:
That's pretty funny.

Sean Kady:
That is pretty funny. I know that you get a lot of flack, because I don't know if a lot of people know this, but you don't actually smoke cannabis.

Drew Lian:
That's true. I'm a vegan butcher.

Sean Kady:
A vegan butcher. So kind of explain what that means to you and how you [inaudible 00:03:23]-

Drew Lian:
It's pretty funny, because obviously, if you're a butcher, you probably eat meat. To be a vegan and being a butcher, that doesn't really make sense. I tell that joke a lot, because a lot of people can't believe that I don't blaze. But I just got into it for competition. A lot of my friends were into it, and I thought I could do a better job.

Sean Kady:
Right. Okay. No, I hear what you're saying. I guess to speak to that, though, do you remember the first time you smoked cannabis and the last, and was there a reason that you quit?

Drew Lian:
So for sure in high school, I got it. I got into it a couple of times, and I just found it was the opposite of what it is for most people. It made me really paranoid and really antisocial. I tried a couple different strains just to see is there any hope? Can I enjoy it? Because I love the culture, I love everything about it. It's just consuming it that maybe I'm allergic to. I just have adverse reactions. I would say, I don't know, maybe 10 years ago I tried it again maybe just because, and a lot of my friends were chirping me. They were like, "Well, it's probably because you're smoking your own weed. Get some crappy weed and start on the crappy weed first."

Sean Kady:
Oh. Really? Okay.

Drew Lian:
Yeah. So they were like, "Start with something small first," but it was the same. I just didn't enjoy it, and I was like, "Why do I put myself through this every time? I just don't enjoy it."

Sean Kady:
Yeah. Don't put yourself through that suffering. I get it. A lot of people, it doesn't work for them anymore. I just thought I'd ask if there was a reason, here or there, but that makes sense. It brings you anxiety, it doesn't relax you, essentially in a nutshell, I guess.

Drew Lian:
Yes.

Charlie Kady:
Fair enough. Very interesting. I feel like that must be like being a pizza delivery guy. You just smell pizza all day, but you never eat it. That's interesting, man. That's tough. Very cool.

Sean Kady:
Being a celiac and being a pizza delivery guy.

Charlie Kady:
I guess, yeah.
You know what I mean. That's interesting man. I'm curious to know how you got... You said for competition obviously. I think that's awesome. We're competitive too, in a lot of ways. But what got you so I guess into growing for a living and now even doing it legally?

Sean Kady:
Yeah, I was going to ask that too. What was the transition from the legacy to legal? Because I'm a legacy guy too. Has that been difficult? Are there grow techniques that you use in legacy that you just can't use in legal? Obviously, there's a wealth of knowledge you bring to the table because you've been doing it for a long time, but what was that transition like, I guess?

Drew Lian:
A lot of it was sink or swim. A lot of it was pay to learn. A lot of mistakes that you would make cost you a lot of money. If you grew poor product or you had a poor garden at the time, have the AC go down, or maybe your pumps failed and they didn't get watered, that's an expensive mistake. So all these mistakes that I learned over time helped me when we came into the legal market know what setups are failure proof. We basically copied the blueprint from my black market days into the legal market, which kind of gave us an edge, especially for quality. A lot of the LPs that we visited at the time that we were designing our facility, they weren't able to do the lollipop deleaf on day 1 and day 21. Just because the rooms that they designed were so big, there was no way you would be able to give each plant the attention it needed.

Sean Kady:
And for people that don't know what lollipopping is, it's essentially getting rid of some of the fan leaves so that it attracts more light to the bud essentially.

Drew Lian:
So that's the deleafing part, and then there's the lollipop, which you're referring to, that's just where you're removing a lot of the lower laterals, which would be the branches coming off of the main stem. You would remove them at least two to three, four inches off the bottom of your media just so that it would clean it up. Those aren't going to grow you any decent bud anyways, so you want to remove all that extra stuff that's just going to turn into waste so that the plant has the energy to put it into the main colas.

Sean Kady:
That's fucking sick, man. Well, it gets me really amped up anyway.

John Strauss:
Yeah, I mean we obviously we're not growers, so yeah, it's very cool to get that.

Sean Kady:
Yeah, I guess it was about a year ago I got to visit you guys at the facility. I wanted to speak to that. It was such an amazing experience. I'll never forget that day. Actually went with our producer, Carly, and just learned so much. Really, sometimes when you're in the retail side of things, it can be mundane. But then when you go to a really passionate operation and you see what you guys are doing out there, it made me happy, and it made me bring that back. I really feel like truly to the shop and all my staff. Happy, why we're all in weed and gets that kind of passion fired up in everybody I think. So just wanted to say thanks for that man. It was fucking sick. Yeah.

Drew Lian:
Well that's so exciting. You guys are so passionate, and you guys are on the front lines with clients, and you're talking about why this product is in the higher price point. Having you guys come, and Carmel's built its reputation on being transparent. To be able to share our passion, and you guys come in, we open every door, bring your phones, take photos, see everything. And then you're able to still share our process. You can explain how we do things to get such a high quality.

Sean Kady:
It's just makes our job so much easier, man. I just can always pull out the orange bag and be like, "Have you tried Carmel yet?" Especially when tourists come to Queen Lust.

Charlie Kady:
Love it. Love recommending it.

Sean Kady:
It's just an easy recommendation. I want to smoke something good. I think I talked about this last episode on the podcast, but I think it has to do with the cure a lot. You guys really nailed the cure, in my opinion. To a lot of people, I think it's a really rush step sometimes for people. And that was definitely something that I noticed when I went to you guys with the barrels and it made sense, saw you burping them and yeah. I remember you couldn't tell me all the secret sauce to it, but I just really love that you do that properly and how important it is.

John Strauss:
Drew, you should talk about the cure, because I feel like it's something that we talk about in market a lot, and there's misconceptions about what proper cured weed is. I feel like you guys do a really good job and sometimes-

Charlie Kady:
I agree, John. Thanks for bringing that up.

John Strauss:
For sure.

Drew Lian:
I basically, everybody knows it as a cure, but I call it just moisture equalisation. All we're really trying to do is when you're drying the product over the first 10 to 14 days, first of all, we cut everything into segments and we hang dry first, and then we dry trim after. A lot of other facilities, they could still be using the old mechanical machine trimmers, which kind of just explodes the chlorophyll all over the buds. For us, we skip that step. The chlorophyll doesn't explode anywhere because we already dry the product before we even trim it. Is that a phone?

Sean Kady:
Yeah, well, the store's open. I think that's just the store phone. Oh, that was so funny. Sorry about that.

Drew Lian:
Yeah, no problem. So basically, the moisture equalisation in the dry room, basically we're just trying to get it so that the big buds that were still on the wetter side that have to sweat out, and the lower, smaller buds that which will dry faster in the 10 to 14 days. When we get them in the barrel, they start sweating, and the dryer smaller buds will end up absorbing that moisture.
So we will burp the barrel every day for the first 7 to 10 days. That way, we can get fresh air introduced into the barrel. A lot of that moisture will escape. A lot of the time, you'll open a bag, and it smells like ammonia or chemical. That means probably they forgot to burp their barrel at the beginning, and that musty smell started to develop. After the first 7 to 10 days, we're kind of on cruise control once the moisture is equalised. So then the process starts where you're losing a lot of that fresh smell, and you're starting to get the terpene profile that you're expecting for that cultivar.

Sean Kady:
Yeah, I think it really shows too, because whenever I bust open a nug from you guys, it's always... It's like when you really get into, it's still nice and moist in the centre, but not to a point. It's just like as you get closer, it's always great and has that kind of wet sand texture.

John Strauss:
Yeah. One thing Drew and the Billy are really good at is they dry the buds to around 11%, 12% moisture, so outside it's kind of rock hard, it's got that rock hard feel. But as soon as you bust it up, it has that sandy, densy feel, whereas a lot of other LPs we see will dry to 13%, 14% moisture content. And with that, you get a much darker looking bud, and also, the nose isn't there. So with going to that a little bit drier, you get the much nicer nose and a much nicer bag appeal. And also the longevity is there. You can keep that in the bag for six months, and if it's cured right, it will still pop when you open it.

Drew Lian:
The colour is way more vibrant, in my opinion, and also the terps are way louder when you just go that 1% or 2% a little drier.

Sean Kady:
On that note, I actually just had this thought popped in my head. We did want to give you guys, I don't know if you know this, I think I did tell John, we did, we have the Space Traveller Award. You guys won for, obviously, it was the first rotational SKU that you guys did, or it was the Billys and the Drews. And I want to talk a little bit about that. We'll get to that later. But obviously, just congratulate you guys for winning our Flower of the Year last year. I know you didn't grow it, but do you guys have any hand in the cure, or when it comes, are you just bagging it? It's already cured and ready to go from paper craft.

Drew Lian:
So by the time we get it, there's been already a vetting process. A lot of the product that we want to put in the Drew's pheno or Billy's pheno, we'll go and visit the facility. We'll make sure. Some of the time, it's our boys from the legacy market that finally got online. But even for Cream and Tina, that was from Noble Growth next Friday.

John Strauss:
I love Cream and Tina. I really love [inaudible 00:13:14]

Drew Lian:
It was like blueberry muffins. It was unbelievable. That one we flew out, it's outside of Edmonton. We made sure the facility was on point exactly a lot of the process that we do. So a lot of work goes into it before it even makes it into our bag.

Sean Kady:
Yeah. What was it like to put your name on a product? Charlie's always like, "Ah, it's so top. My name's on the marquee."

Drew Lian:
There's so much pressure.

Charlie Kady:
It's a lot of pressure.

Sean Kady:
And I'm sure you hear it sometimes.

Drew Lian:
100%. A lot of people are like, "Oh, when's the next drop?" It's like, "We're still looking for the next drop." A lot of samples come through the door. We probably look at over a hundred before one makes it in the bag.

Sean Kady:
No, and that's what I really love about Carmel. Am I right, Charlie? These guys always just take their time. They don't push products out. We're always talking about rushing to innovation. I just wanted to present this to you guys. Obviously, take it back.

John Strauss:
Do we get to keep this?

Sean Kady:
Yeah. [inaudible 00:14:10]

John Strauss:
Put that in the facility, sure.

Sean Kady:
Send us a photo. You guys put in the facility. Honestly, beyond just working with you guys and loving you guys. I feel like it-

Drew Lian:
Unbelievable. This is probably the best award we've gotten.

Sean Kady:
Yeah. Thanks so much, man. Yeah, no, honestly, you guys mean a lot to us, and so we wanted to make sure to get you.

John Strauss:
Awesome.

Sean Kady:
And we sold so many bags of Billy's Vino.

Charlie Kady:
Our show manager, he's absolutely a huge fan too.

Sean Kady:
He's a massive fan. We have-

Charlie Kady:
We're all huge fans.

Sean Kady:
We're all big fans of it. I know that it's at the end of its run too.

Drew Lian:
Yes, we're retiring it, because we have a new banger coming out.

Sean Kady:
Ooh.

John Strauss:
Same grower.

Drew Lian:
Same grower.

Sean Kady:
Oh really? You want to talk about that quickly now?

John Strauss:
Yeah. So Papers, currently. You should talk about Papers first, because they're sick. We, Jason and the team there, they're a really small operation. They grow in downtown Calgary. They're a bunch of legacy black market guys who got some capital together and built a micro from the ground up. And they've been running. We've been really impressed with everything we've seen from them. And the Animal Phase Girl Scout cookies is something they bred in house. We've probably brought, I don't know, six to eight rooms to market now in Ontario a bit. We just loaded in the last lot two weeks ago, so we are finally moving on to a new genetic. We did do the Georgia Sour. They grew as well. So everything under Billy's has been grown by Papers so far. We have their, what is it, Jet Fuel Gelato cross with White Truffle that's coming out in August.

Sean Kady:
Did Billy have more of a relationship with these guys? Is that why he got to claim he's like, "Oh, the Paper Craft's mine."

John Strauss:
No, honestly, he was there the day the sample came in and he is like, this is fire.

Sean Kady:
This is it.

John Strauss:
And to tell you the truth, Billy's favourite legacy strain is Girl Scout cookies. And the fact that animal face came from-

Sean Kady:
These original Girl Scout cookies is so hard to find these guys.

John Strauss:
Oh, we have the form cuts.

Sean Kady:
Do you?

John Strauss:
Yeah, yeah. It's not nice. We were waiting to drop that one. And the Animal Face came from Billy's private seed collection. So when we had our one time declaration, when we came on board legal, we were able to declare our seed collections. And animal face was one of the first packs of seeds we popped at Carmel in the facility. So that's why that the Animal Face Girl Scout cookie was near and dear to him.

Sean Kady:
I think it's such a legendary strain Animal Face. And you guys knocked it out of the park. Obviously it's such a massive success for you guys. How did you know that that genetic would be so bang? And how did you guys decide on that? Did you anticipate it? Yeah.

Drew Lian:
He's such a beast and unicorn. And you guys know as well as I know. Anybody walking in your store is always asking what's next? The longevity of Animal Face, nobody would know we're year four. And it's still crushing it.

Sean Kady:
14 grand bags launching soon?

John Strauss:
Today it went live on...Not really today. They'll be in market two to three weeks probably. So we're stoked on that.

Sean Kady:
It'll be on our many [inaudible 00:17:03]-

John Strauss:
Second launch of the 14 grand bag too. Second round.

Sean Kady:
That's right. That's exciting.

Drew Lian:
Yeah. Trying to give the love back. But yeah, the Animal Face, we had no idea. It was so good. It grew really well. It had the bag appeal it. The nose was great. It's so funny because a lot of people are like, "Yo, this is an indica." We get messages really over the weekend. We come in sometimes on Monday morning, Leslie, our office lady, she'll be like, "Oh, you got to listen to this message." And it's like somebody, high as a kite, I feel like I'm in high school. You guys are wrong.

Sean Kady:
Wiping them out.

Drew Lian:
Yeah. They're like, this is an indica. This is going to get more sales. [inaudible 00:17:44].

Sean Kady:
That's hilarious.

Drew Lian:
We want to make a compilation of all the funny messages we get on Mondays after the weekend, but everybody's like, "Yo, Animal Face is so strong. It has to be an indica." But-

Sean Kady:
It's not. There you go. I guess it was. And when you grew it out, you were comfortable with it too. I'm sure that that has something to do with it. You're like, "Oh, I know I can grow this out." Yeah?

Drew Lian:
Anybody that comes for the tour, most of our rooms are Animal Face except for what we're pheno hunting or what we're bringing to market, ramping up. You'll see Animal Face, she's a very small plant that just emphasises that we're quality over quantity. You'll see how many other plants that we have that are two, three times bigger than animal face. But we still continue to grow it.

Sean Kady:
I remember. I'm going to ask one more question just before I forget. I remember when we toured the facility, you were talking about the regenerative tissue therapy. Because obviously you guys have grown a fuck load of Animal Face and I'm sure that stresses out at commercialising any plant. And I know you're really good at what you do and I'm sure you do your best. But I was fascinated by that process. I guess just like, yeah, what even is that? Yeah, Charlie doesn't know what it was. He didn't come on the tour us. Can you just kind of explain? Because I thought it was really cool.

Drew Lian:
Yeah. So tissue culture, it has a couple different benefits. One is long-term storage where you can keep genetics long term and then you're basically just taking one little node and you're putting it in a sterile media in a test tube and you can just leave it there for years until you're ready to bring it back. Another advantage of tissue culture is where you do it through the meristem cell. You'll under a microscope, pull out the meristem cell and you'll grow in the media a new plant. The reason you do that is it helps reintroduce all the vigour. Similar to the day that we popped that Animal Face seed. It'll give it all its vigour back, but it also will eliminate any pester pathogens that were present. So any viruses will be eliminated. Over two to three years of running Animal Face, it would get tired from taking clones off the moms and over the cycle, if it was ever exposed to any viruses or anything that would slow the plant down.
So by taking the initiative to send it out early on, we sent it out for tissue culture. It took over a year and a half to get it back. Luckily animal face was a hit. We planned accordingly. We got it back in the vigor's nest. It was rooting a lot faster. It was growing a lot. A lot.-

Sean Kady:
So when it's planned then, I guess is what I was going to say from when I saw you. Because I remember you were really excited about it, but you're like, I don't know yet. It sounds really cool in theory, but-

Drew Lian:
Right. And it's funny, since your visit, we sent my brother off to tissue culture school. So now we're able to do tissue culture in house and control it ourselves. So we're able to reset cultivars and store cultivars while we're doing a pheno hunt. It's a huge advantage because when we're doing pheno hunts, a hundred different strains at a time, my brother is responsible for keeping all those on backup two to three months until we get the lab results. And then he has to go back and get the exact winner so that we can ramp it up. But by doing the tissue culture and keeping everything stored, it gives me the ability to look through seeds a lot faster. And for us to reset stuff, we just harvested a room with Animal Face before pre tissue culture. I saved the pre tissue culture Animal Face just in case we had problems with the Animal Face after tissue culture, just to be safe.

Sean Kady:
Makes sense.

Drew Lian:
Could you imagine?

Sean Kady:
Smart.

Drew Lian:
We sent it off and then all of a sudden we got back a 12% Animal Face.

Sean Kady:
Yeah. Or something that's susceptible to some weird disease or something.

Drew Lian:
Or they switched it by accident with something else. Could you imagine?

Sean Kady:
Yeah. She lives on what a staple. What a beast. We love the Animal Face. I think we're going to take a quick break right there. I had no idea you work with your brother either, so I'm going to speak about that when you come back.

John Strauss:
Yeah, it's family affair, we got-

Sean Kady:
Got a lot of family.

Drew Lian:
We got some [inaudible 00:21:35] and all legacy homies.

Sean Kady:
And going to ask some questions of John Straus too when we come back.

John Strauss:
Awesome.
Carmel in the house.

Sean Kady:
Carmel in the house. HigherOrbit.

Charlie Kady:
Welcome back. We are still open. We're here with the Carmel team. John and Drew.

Sean Kady:
What about the chap that live over here?

Charlie Kady:
And Sean. Yeah, my brother. That's right. I think we were talking about growing. Lots of ins and outs of that. We're definitely, well you were getting into it there Drew, and I loved it. But I'm very curious to know the cycles and I guess timing of the pheno hunting and with the competitiveness of flower, as you've said, Animal Face obviously has had a huge success, so that's awesome to keep being able to do that. But it's like what you mentioned it always looking for the next thing. How much of all the things that you do when you're focusing on the cure and burping barrels, what's dedicated to-

Drew Lian:
The pheno hunt?

John Strauss:
Yeah.

Drew Lian:
The pheno hunt is why I show up to work every day.

Charlie Kady:
That's the passion.

Drew Lian:
Yeah, that's the passion. So I mean, we're always trying to pop seeds. That's what gets us excited. So I describe it as scratch off lotto tickets. Every pack of seed you buy, you have a chance to find a winner.

Sean Kady:
I love that.

Charlie Kady:
I like that analogy. Kind of like a scratcher?

Drew Lian:
Yeah, that's what it is. And so I have a huge seed collection. Billy has a huge seeds collection, and we're just trying to go through it. And every time that we load a room, we always make it a thing that we put new FENOs in there because we're always trying to find something as good as Animal Face or better. And we know your struggle. Everybody comes in. They could be a big fan of Animal Face, but they want to know what's new and they're going to try something new before they go back to their favourite. So we're always looking for that next pheno. And it takes a lot of time because you'll fall in love with different plants as you grow them. Bag appeal, this one smells great, this one, "Holy smokes. Look at the size of the buds on that thing." But then you'll get the COAs and nothing tested above 25. So those are all going in the garbage. It's definitely a love hate process because you definitely fall in love so many times and then the COA comes in and ruins it.

Charlie Kady:
That's painful.

Drew Lian:
It's very painful.

Charlie Kady:
I bet. Yeah. I just know I love gardening. I would love to grow some weed. Yeah. Because it's like next level gardening in my opinion. But I can see, I get mad when the squirrel with my tomato. I'd probably lose my mind. You put all that love into there-

John Strauss:
We'll have strains that the whole team is like, this is the one, we all smoke it. We're like, "This is fire."

Sean Kady:
Everyone's this excited.

John Strauss:
I'll even, sometimes we'd have it where Billy would grow it at his home grow or Drew would grow to their home grow before we tried it at the facility. And we'd all try it and everyone would fall in love with it. And then you test it and it's like 18% or even 14%. We had this strain called Pure Michigan where it's a Thug Pug genetic, we're all in love with it. It grows purple in the facility, which we're a mixed light and it's kind of hard to get purple. So that's sick. Smelled like burnt rubber and gas. And it was a really heavy indica. So we're all pretty confident this is the one. And then we test it and it comes back. The three different tests come back at 12, 14 to 16%. And I brought that to an event and everyone was like, "This is the strongest indica that you guys have grown." So it's like what?
It's like there's so much more to it than these numbers. And it sucks how they're such an indicator.

Charlie Kady:
They won't get picked up.

John Strauss:
Yeah. So there's so many awesome genetics right now that just aren't coming to market because they just don't hit the numbers. The THC, the one number.

Sean Kady:
That's really sad.

John Strauss:
It is pretty sad.

Drew Lian:
Yeah. I'll just say that.

Charlie Kady:
What is the THC craze. Yeah. We won't get into that too much I guess, but...
Yeah. I'm curious to know what, so again, even going to that process, you're pheno hunting, you're looking for it. What decides, obviously like you said, it's a bit of a lotto, but are you guys, you probably working together and being, what do the people need?

Drew Lian:
So we have our checklist that we always go through. But for me, I always was based on bag appeal and smell. And Billy, he goes smell, then bag appeal. So between both of us we're super picky. That's how we always end up with something pretty exciting. The checklist always involves the bag appeal, the nose, the structure, how it performs in our facility. Yeah, it's pretty extensive.

Sean Kady:
That's amazing. I wanted to ask John a quick question because I feel like a lot of people don't know how important you are. I feel like we've kind of seen Carmel rise to the cream of the crop. Especially when you talk about LPs in Ontario and what makes selling weed difficult, man? I mean I have a sales background too. And then it's such an important side of any business I feel like. And I think you've done so well with it. And-

John Strauss:
Yeah, one of the biggest challenges is the regulations. So I came, before cannabis, I was working alcohol, which is a pretty regulated market too. So it's kind of used to some of the barriers you have to deal with. But cannabis just has tenfold barriers. Social media's really challenging. I've had Instagram account... My Instagram account, I get a warning almost once every other day that it's going to get shut down because I'm posting only weed content. So to try to build a following there is impossible. And then all the other social medias are tough. And then to market the product in store can be challenging with the regulations. To throw events can be really challenging. I love throwing cannabis events and I think we've tried to-

Sean Kady:
We've been teamed up on one when we did that-

John Strauss:
Yeah. Did we did on the park right here.

Sean Kady:
Yeah. For our birthday. We were out in the park there. And we even did that joint rolling lesson. Remember we did that for sure. But you've always been involved in just getting that brand out there and it's such an iconic brand with the colours and the scheme. I mean, I always knew you guys before I opened a store, I just thought that you were the cream of the crop as far as brand and then when you opened it, it was fire. Because there's so many cannabis brands in my opinion, where they nailed the branding and you're super excited and you're like, "Oh, that looks amazing. And you're really excited to open the jar and you get into fizz."

John Strauss:
Yeah, it's such a gamble.

Sean Kady:
It's Reggie as you guys would call it or whatever, right?

John Strauss:
Yeah.

Charlie Kady:
Yeah.

Sean Kady:
Legend with Reggie.

Charlie Kady:
What's up with the Reggie?

Sean Kady:
What's up with the Reggie? I like it and I've heard it before, thrown around in other contexts. It's more of a west coast thing or-

John Strauss:
It's a US thing for sure.

Sean Kady:
Is it?

John Strauss:
Yeah, yeah. Just like regular weed Reggie. Just like mids.

Sean Kady:
There's a number of reasons you could call it, but I noticed on the papers it was like, "Don't smoke Reggie. Don't smoke bush." Similar kind of thing. Is there a reason that you guys hold onto that term and it means something to you guys, everyone at the team of Carmel?

Drew Lian:
I mean obviously we have a history in the legacy market and with the culture and at the time that was just so funny. It describes what was going on in the legal market. So we just definitely stuck to it.

Sean Kady:
Adapted.

Drew Lian:
Adapted to it. And I mean [inaudible 00:28:58] getting popular now. A lot of people are talking about that [inaudible 00:29:01], so.

Sean Kady:
Yeah, no, no, no. It's really become, I just think associated with the brand, I think it's awesome. I think it's a fun one and everyone's got to take their claim one.

Drew Lian:
It's funny because West, our other sales guy, he's supposed to get that tattooed. The-

Sean Kady:
The Reggie?

Drew Lian:
We don't smoke Reggie.

John Strauss:
Don't smoke Reggie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that.

Drew Lian:
We got to get you on that one.

John Strauss:
Oh man, yeah.

Charlie Kady:
Speaking of the legend of Reggie, what's up with the Bart Simpson?

Drew Lian:
Oh, the Bart Simpson, that's crop steering. Did you remember that or is that something different?

Sean Kady:
Yeah, yeah. No, it's playing the Bart Simpson. I don't remember what is up with the Bart Simpson.

Drew Lian:
The Bart Simpson is a funny thing that Billy and I talk about on the tour because some of the sensors that we use to monitor our facility and to monitor our growth, we plug those into the growth end blocks and it gives us x-ray vision into what's going on. Are they drinking all their water? Are they eating all their food? So there's a couple different watering patterns and we nicknamed them the Shark, the Camel, and then the Bart Simpson. And the Bart Simpson is the one with the jagged hair.

Sean Kady:
So this one, okay. When the reading comes back and it's like spiky is-

John Strauss:
Just so you can app in and just be like, "Oh, nice. Looking good."

Drew Lian:
Yeah, like our whole facility is controlled by my phone. Billy has access to it. The laptops, we're on vacation, of course we're looking at it all the time. But right now, if I wanted to, I could send a shot of water to a specific room on a specific bench.

Sean Kady:
And there's a specific name for that system that you use. Right?

Drew Lian:
[inaudible 00:30:35] system.

Sean Kady:
And I don't think everybody uses it. You guys seem to have mastered it pretty well, so

Drew Lian:
Hundred percent. It's a game changer.

Sean Kady:
And it allows you just to touch on that. Every plant you get a reading on, do I need more water? Do I need a little more nutrients? Is that kind of the kind of information you're going to get?

Drew Lian:
Yeah, and honestly, when we started using their programme, it was the first time we were able to push Animal Face from 28 to over 30.

Sean Kady:
Oh, wow.

Drew Lian:
So in potency. So that was a big game changer for us. And we were able to increase our yields because when you're measuring how they're drinking and you're seeing it real data, you're able to push the plant, you're making it sprint, you're making it-

Sean Kady:
Perfectly.

Drew Lian:
You're able to really, really push the plant.

Charlie Kady:
Wow. That's pretty wild.

Sean Kady:
That's crazy, man. Yeah, it's really nice to, we get to talk growing with somebody who just knows their stuff. It's the first time on this show.

John Strauss:
Of course.

Charlie Kady:
It's fascinating to me anyways.

Drew Lian:
I geek out all the time.

Sean Kady:
Yeah, well easier job of selling it, but I do think so. Yeah, your job seems a lot harder that's for sure. And speaking of it, I wonder, does that happen a lot to you, John? I guess on the roads selling it? Are people like, we don't fuck with Carmel.

John Strauss:
No, not it's not. We have, there's the odd hater here and there, but for the most part it's like we're really well received in market and super grateful for that. Our retailers in Ontario, because we're an Ontario based craft company, they really like to support us and we feel really lucky for that. When I first started with the company, I was going out in market and there had never been a rep out in market. So a lot of people have never seen anyone from Carmel. And the way people were greeting me in store was making me feel uncomfortable almost. They were so excited to see me and they were so happy to see someone from Carmel. I was like this feels weird because I've been a salesperson for a really long time and usually they're kind of like, "Oh, can you leave? You're bothering me?"
But yeah, so it's sick man. We have so much fun with all our budtenders and retailers. It's a little family we have and we're really fortunate for that. I think the product speaks for itself. So a lot of people... And I think the company has a personality. As Drew said, he works with his brother. His brother does our clones. Paul, our facility manager, Shannon, his wife works with us as well. It's a really small knit family. A good example is Eric. Drew and I are talking about Eric today. He's our marketing coordinator. He was a budtender in Toronto. at the Green Closet on Parliament there. And we had a virtual PK during Covid and the guy wouldn't stop asking questions, most excited budtender ever. And then just se would send us emails kind of like, "Hey guys, are you hiring at all?"
Just you could tell he really wanted it. And then he came to the open fair for the company and met the whole team. And then a job wasn't available at the time, so there wasn't anything for him. And a couple months later, job part position opens up for marketing coordinator and he comes and joins the team. Oh, that's awesome. And I've seen our Purolator driver come to the facility, drops something off, "Are you guys hiring?" Next week later he's working at the facility. So it's pretty sick.

Drew Lian:
Funny story [inaudible 00:33:37]-

John Strauss:
All these budtenders who work for us, I think at some point we'll have to talk about how Bam works for us in the hash lab now. Because that's a crazy story.

Drew Lian:
Oh, a hundred percent. Bam, he's living his best life.

Sean Kady:
Yeah, talk about that. How long have you had a hash lab? I guess that Bam is the head of the hash lab if I'm not mistaken.

Drew Lian:
Yes. He's the lead hash extractor. We started a year ago and Carmel we love to take our time to launch products and make sure the product is going to be A one, perfect before we launch it. We decided to make a bubble hash washing lab. I gave up my office, QA gave up a little bit of their office. So we ended up making a hash lab and it was just perfect timing. Like Bam. Bam was available. I mean the guy's got hash tattooed on his arm, but he's so passionate. And then it just so happened he needed an assistant and his son was able to step up for that position.

Charlie Kady:
See that's so special, man. That's really cool.

Drew Lian:
Yeah. So it's a lot of family.

Sean Kady:
Lot of family.

Drew Lian:
Family first.

Sean Kady:
SO you ever struggle working with your brother? Is that something... I mean-

Drew Lian:
It's been years. I know my brother knows I love him and he... I'm probably the hardest on him because he's my brother. But he crushes it. He runs three departments. He's anything that's in veg non flower, he does.

Sean Kady:
A hardworking guy like yourself. Yeah.

Drew Lian:
Yeah. Except on Saturdays.

John Strauss:
Exactly. There you go.

Sean Kady:
And dude, he's been working with you for a while. Even before-

Drew Lian:
Even before. He's had my back through so many different grows. I've left him at a grow.

Sean Kady:
You guys grow together?

Drew Lian:
Yeah, I would. I would have him at a grow and I would leave him there for a week. I would just get him groceries for a week and make sure his World Warcraft was working and he would just water the plants for the whole week and I'd come back and just check on him. He tells that story a lot.

Sean Kady:
That's funny, man.

Drew Lian:
But he's been so loyal and he's always had my back and it's so nice to see him working alongside me when this opportunity came about.

Sean Kady:
That's really dope. Do you imagine, can you see, I just think it's such a perfect marriage. How did Carmel all come about? You've been there since day one, am I correct?

Drew Lian:
Yes.

Sean Kady:
And I know it's been a small team. What's that journey been like to grow up the team you guys have? And I'm sure John could speak to that too because I remember at one point you were on the one and only sales guy and how many... Is he still?

John Strauss:
No. [inaudible 00:36:10] Yeah, so we now have someone representing us in Alberta. We've got Fernando out there. We got Davin out in BC for us. Really cool guy. Started one of the first legacy dispensaries in BC and been doing it for long time. So it's sick to have him on the team. And now in Ontario we've got West, who's been with us for over a year now. And then we just brought on Brooke, who does southeastern Ontario too. We got a little mini team now, which is pretty sweet.

Sean Kady:
That's super exciting. Because I feel like, especially in the cannabis industry, I mean there's been so many it's not a happy space. I feel like you guys are, one thing that's made me so happy with the beacon of hope analogy because now you guys are a beacon of hope. And the little guy, if you do it right and you're doing things properly, there is room to grow and succeed.
And even when I visited you guys it's like working on top of each other. I was so impressed by the efficiency of the facility and just using every nook and cranny you guys have that have it packed. So shout out to that and the efficiency of it and all that stuff. Where was we going with that? I got a little lost.

Charlie Kady:
No, that's okay. You're just saying that we love you. We feel the love. You guys get the family thing.

John Strauss:
Yeah, [inaudible 00:37:18] I guess we tried these new drops coming out. The OZ Kush Cake, the one gramme infused with the MAC1 ice water bubble hash.
Yeah, you slime. You smoked it without me.

Sean Kady:
Sean, give us a sample before, but I can tell you what, it's Sean and Charlie approved.

John Strauss:
Amazing.

Drew Lian:
That's, that's such a sick stamp. Yeah.

Sean Kady:
We're really excited to have those in guys. That was a beautiful little pre-roll and I think obviously the King Palm's phasing out. So shout to anybody that was a huge fan of those infused King Palms. Get them while they're still on the shelves. Because I'm pretty sure we're going regular pre-roll infused, right John? Is that right?

John Strauss:
Yeah. So we just launched last week, just a regular Animal Face flower with the Animal Face ice water bubble hash one gramme pre-roll. And that replaced the King Palm. We love the King Palm. When we first dropped the king palm infused blunt, it was just like a one-off. We're just going to launch this for fun. I think it's more for a cool product to launch, but it was never meant to be a volume skew or anything like that. And then with the popularity we had to keep on doing it, so it just turned into a... And it was a pain in the ass. The King Palm suck.

Sean Kady:
A lot of problems working with the King Palm. Sure. They get your dry really quick and stuff.

John Strauss:
Drew can probably speak to it better than I can of what they had to go through.

Drew Lian:
Oh, man yes, you're right. The leaf we have to keep hydrated. You should see the team.

Sean Kady:
Nice.

Drew Lian:
It looks like a bunch of ladies knitting. They have chopsticks that they're packing each one by hand. It definitely was a labour of love.

John Strauss:
Yeah, those were nice.

Sean Kady:
They were really nice.

Charlie Kady:
Those were nice.

John Strauss:
They were nice. But some, yeah, we have the one gramme pre-roll and then we're working on a new blunt for later on probably in August or fall maybe.

Sean Kady:
Like a more traditional blunt wrap?

John Strauss:
Yeah, it's like it's going to be a more of a party blunt. Two and a half grammes a nice glass tip. And we're still working on the final details, but yeah, it'll be pretty sick and it'll be infused as well.

Charlie Kady:
We'll go for that.

Sean Kady:
What do we got here guys? These are new drops too, right?

John Strauss:
Yeah, so we have a bunch of stuff dropping July 11th, so we got two new genetics. So in front of me we've got the Ksmorz.

Sean Kady:
Nice.

John Strauss:
Drew, do you want to talk a bit about the Ksmorz? I know that one's special for you.

Drew Lian:
Yeah, Ksmorz is really special to me because Coma, the grower coming up in the game, he definitely was a heavy influence like a mentor to me. Even though we never met face to face. This guy was one of the first YouTubers that was not showing his face and kind of showing people how to different grow techniques. And I learned a lot from him. It changed my game, watching him on YouTube and then he got onto Instagram and somehow I ended up getting his number. I would message him questions on this platform called Kick. I don't know if you guys remember that It's sold.
And he didn't even know me and he would still answer my questions. And he was into martial arts. I always used to call him Sensei. I'd be asking him questions and he'd always help me out and I was like, man, there's got to be a way-

Charlie Kady:
That's nice.

Drew Lian:
...I can repay you. And eventually he ended up launching his own seed line from his genetics, from his private collection. So as soon as he did that, it was an easy way for me to pay him back by ordering his whole collection. So at Carmel we're slowly working our way through his whole collection right now. I probably got at least 12 of his genetics on the go right now. The Ksmorz is we were super excited to launch this one first.
It's probably Johnny's favourite smoke.

John Strauss:
Yeah. So we've had it had samples for the past week of it and so I've been smoking a lot and yeah, it's just the flavours. It's quite gassy. It's probably one of the gassier strains we've launched. It's got this nutty sweetness to it too. But overall it's just a really smooth smoke. We were just smoking one of the pre-rolls and yeah, it's just really clean.

Charlie Kady:
Nice.

John Strauss:
Doesn't make you cough at all. It's really light smoke. So I look for flavour and the quality of the smoke. And then the effects are really nice too.

Charlie Kady:
Nice.

John Strauss:
I like how it's nicely balanced. It's definitely the more balanced.

Sean Kady:
Doesn't wipe you out too hard.

John Strauss:
No, I'd say this one's more like you can smoke this during the day and get your shit done. Whereas the OZ Kush Cake is your nighttime smoke. That's what you want to get into to pass out before bed. And it's got a lot of orange. It's like, we call it the orange creamsicle. I've got orange soda cans for it, for the logo because it's when we were in the grower room, it's like this tastes like orange pop.

Charlie Kady:
Nice. I can't wait to get into those and get them in the shot, man.

Drew Lian:
Yeah, super excited.

Charlie Kady:
The Bellwoods community, Cosmic Charlies. We got to try them out.

Drew Lian:
Yeah, right. The other one the OZ Kush, that one's super sick. It's by a breeder named Sunken Treasure. So I probably have four or five different ones that's their genetics. I'm super excited for that one too.

Sean Kady:
We'll be right back with John and Drew from Carmel. Don't forget to follow us at HigherOrbit and follow Carmel at Carmel underscore official. I got that right, Ray.
Welcome back. 81 Queen Street West. We just closed up the shop or we're getting close anyways.

Charlie Kady:
Just about.

Sean Kady:
Five minutes, almost 10 with our buddies from Carmel Cannabis. It's been such a pleasure to have you guys, man. We got you for another 20 minutes here.

Drew Lian:
Thanks for having us.

Sean Kady:
Yeah. Is there anything dying questions you wanted to ask, Charlie?

Charlie Kady:
I'd love to just continue the conversation about you're thriving in the market and again, it's been what, I guess a couple years that you've been around now. And I mean we've been there and experienced it and kind of seen it all happen and we love it. It's that little family that keeps it going. I mean, you guys do things differently. You are keeping all these key details in mind. I'd love to hear more about the gene banks and just everything man. You guys could just keep talking. I would listen probably, so.

John Strauss:
Yeah, I was saying earlier we should get Drew to talk about your genetic pile thing is pretty unique and your and Billy's genetic pile. And some of your favourite breeders and some seeds that you're stoked on that you're pheno hunting right now.

Drew Lian:
Honestly. So I have a lot of the old school stuff, Billy, he's pretty focused on the new school stuff. A lot of the breeders that we focus on obviously see-

Sean Kady:
When you're talking old school and new school, do you feel like he's more like a-

Drew Lian:
Sound diesel?

Sean Kady:
Yeah. I hear you. More legacy old school screens and he likes more exotics and more crazy hybrid cross things that you're like...

Drew Lian:
It's so funny. It's so hard to keep track of everything because back in the day-

Sean Kady:
It was crazy.

Drew Lian:
...there was only five strains and then they combine those five strains become 25 new strains and now there's a new strain. There's hundred new strains every day. So it's hard to keep up on, what's current, what's new. And Billy still loves... He'll tell you what this is a cross of immediately. He's the encyclopaedia right now.

Sean Kady:
Wow.

Drew Lian:
Yeah, for me, my seed collection, I was collecting heavily up until, well, I still collect. And I come to realise you can't hoard seeds, you have to just pop your seeds.

Sean Kady:
Because they go bad too after so many years. Right. I mean they know you. You store them as best you can.

Drew Lian:
Yes.

John Strauss:
And then you get really disappointed when they don't pop and they're dried out.

Sean Kady:
Yeah, yeah.

John Strauss:
You're like, "Man, this was a $1000 and I saved it for five years and now it doesn't pop." You're like-

Drew Lian:
So sad.

Charlie Kady:
When did you start collecting seeds? Do you remember?

Drew Lian:
So when I started collecting seeds, there was no breeders. There was a lot of bag seeds.

Charlie Kady:
Unnamed seeds.

Drew Lian:
Yeah, just if that was fire, you saved the bag seed out of it. A lot of people complain nowadays, they're like, oh, I got one seed in my bud. And you're like, congratulations, you should pop that. That's like a $53.5. Just pop it and enjoy it. But the seeds that I was collecting, it wasn't until Cali Connection, this guy Swerve, he actually got in a lot of trouble. He was the original, I don't know what to call it, boutique breeder. He was the one that actually was putting out clone only strains into seed. So one of the ones I got from him was like Chem Valley, ChemDawg crossed to San Fernando Valley. He gave me directly at one of, before Lyft was Lyft, it was treating yourself Expo or even before Treating Yourself Expo, he was in Toronto. He gave me-

Charlie Kady:
Something like the '90s or something like that.

Drew Lian:
No, no. Definitely not... Yeah, it was in the mid 2000s and he gave me his Tahoe OG directly. That was pretty sick.

Charlie Kady:
Oh, man.

Drew Lian:
So I know a lot of the breeders from before. Right now the most popular ones are Seed Junky, Thug Pug, Compound. Those are the ones that we focus on right now, still currently.

Charlie Kady:
You pay attention to that you know are going to be solid genetics so to speak?

Drew Lian:
Right, yeah. Like Animal Face. Animal Face came from Seed Junky. So we know that the genetics are reliable and you're going to have some top quality and that that's something that we are super passionate about. It's like collecting sneakers. We collect genetics and seed packs similar to how people are obsessed with sneakers.

John Strauss:
There's a funny story with Billy because Billy, so Billy wasn't even a grower for a long time, but he was collecting so many seeds packs. His girlfriend at the time would be like, "Billy, why the hell do you have 200 seed packs? You don't even grow flower. These aren't worth anything. And you're spending hundreds of dollars on all these seed packs." And he's laughing now because he popped the Animal Face and he's got this insane collection that would be worth a tonne of money.

Charlie Kady:
That's like a self-fulfilling prophecy in a weird way.

John Strauss:
It's pretty cool-

Charlie Kady:
[inaudible 00:47:24] Billy it's like I don't know.

John Strauss:
I'm going to do it one day.

Charlie Kady:
Yeah, I'm going to do it one day.

John Strauss:
Drew talked a bit about Billy's like... But Billy is the genetic guy. If you want to talk genetics for 10 hours with someone, Billy's the guy to do it. I've never met someone more knowledgeable on what strains.

Drew Lian:
He doesn't even label the bags. So he just completed a 20 or 30 pheno hunt. He came in with a bunch of Ziplocs, not even labelled and he just cracks every bag, pulls a nug out, smells it. He's like, oh yeah, this is Rainbow Belts.

Charlie Kady:
No way.

Drew Lian:
And pulls out the next one and he's like, oh this one is this cross. And you're like, he did it for 30 bags and-

Charlie Kady:
That's impressive.

Drew Lian:
...he's impressive. He has an extensive palette.

John Strauss:
A blind kind of smell. He can just kind of tell you which one is which. Without labelled kind of thing he said, "I know what that smell is."

Sean Kady:
Especially if he grew it, he can tell by the look of it and the smell.
Yeah. I know you guys, I did want to ask one thing. Are you guys going to do any more breeding? Because I know how you do a tonne of pheno hunting and we saw some breeding with the Dim MAC. Is that like it was technically, and I know that was fans, some people were bigger fans than others. But that's going to be anything I guess.

Drew Lian:
A hundred percent.

Charlie Kady:
Is there anything you learned from that process or taking the breeding forward? Because I would love to see some more breeding from you guys. I think that'd be dope. Yeah.

Drew Lian:
Oh trust me, we still breed all day every day. Right now we're actually working through Animal Face cross to some fun stuff. My Sour Diesel cut that I've had for 14 years, this is super special cut. I've had it for so long. Just the potency isn't there. Because it's so-

Sean Kady:
It's the real Sour. [inaudible 00:49:01] I can't wait man.

Drew Lian:
So Animal Face is 28, 29% consistently. So by hitting the old school Sour Diesel with it, we're trying to get the potency up so it's ready for market. So-

Sean Kady:
Sour Animal.

Drew Lian:
Yeah. So we named that one the Weasel because it was the only animal we could think of that rhyme with diesel.

Sean Kady:
So that's great. I love that man. That's great. You get to finally name your own. I love that you guys also, you stayed true on the transparency node like in the past you've always the strain lineage. If you guys didn't breed it, you didn't give it a different name.

Drew Lian:
Yeah, a hundred percent.

Charlie Kady:
And I always thought that that was really awesome. And part of the reason you guys are coming.

Drew Lian:
That's respect for the breeder breeding, something like pheno hunting, what it was to make that clone only, I would never steal that shine from the breeder. But I was going to tell you, we crossed the Animal Face with the Pink and we named that one the Flamingo. And we just crossed Animal Face to Sorbetto because apparently Sorbetto had-

Sean Kady:
I get asked for it still. I always tell every once in a while, "Do you have any Sorbetto left?"

Drew Lian:
There was a petition to bring it back.

Charlie Kady:
Come on. Call following Sorbetto.

Drew Lian:
So we crosses the Animal Face. And right now we're trying to name it and the only one that we have so far is Sexy AF. But we're still waiting to see because I naming it similar to an animal because it's crossed to Animal Face. So we'll have to think of one for the Sorbetto.

Charlie Kady:
Oh nice. That's exciting. I'm curious on that note, strains evolving, the market evolving. It's like what makes a strain marketable aside from being good, obviously, there's another aspect of it being sellable. We could all like it or-

John Strauss:
Yeah, it's a crazy process. So we look at the market. We look at what's moving right now. It's so tough to predict because the thing is with these pheno hunts, we pop seeds and we do pheno hunts, which a lot of LPs don't do and that takes a really long time.
So we're predicting what we're going to bring to market next winter, at least a year. Sometimes a year and a half out, you have to predict. So to have to predict right now what's going to be trending in a year and a half, is pretty tough. The good thing is Drew and the guys have such an extensive seed collection that we have all these rare genetics that we know a lot of people don't have. So we're popping those seeds and seeing what wins.
And at the end of the day, we think if our team really likes it, it can probably stand on top of someone else who might have grown the same genetic, even if they do launch it. But it's tired. It's really hard to predict. The short, the pheno hunting process is super hard. And that's like, I think what separates you in this saturated market right now.

Charlie Kady:
I love it. Yeah, there's a wild amount of products coming out these days.

John Strauss:
Yeah. I was talking to the OCS at Lyft and they were saying 800 launches this summer of new products.

Sean Kady:
800?

John Strauss:
800 new SKUs.

Sean Kady:
Oh, hey Lauren. I guess the store's closed.

Lauren Blais:
Yeah, store closed. Store is closed for the night.

Charlie Kady:
Oh, well thanks for everything. We'll see you tomorrow.

Sean Kady:
Thanks for holding it down today.

Charlie Kady:
See you Lauren.

John Strauss:
But yeah, like 800 products and we're seeing it. We're like, we're still doing great and we're happy with our position in market, but 3.5s are like, we've seen a huge dip in the past two months. So there's certain things like that that's really hard to predict. And there's so many new products funnelling in especially in the premium category that it's hard to stay on top right now. So it means we have to work a bit harder and be a little sharper on our game. So it's like it's good. It's super competitive and we're all, at the end of the day, quite competitive people. So we want to be the top dog. We want to be the top guy in the craft category. So it's like what can we do to make that happen? And we love all the craft people. We have Cyrus at Loud Plug, all these guys who they're our support network. We go to them with, "Are these guys charging you this for the event? What do you think about this?" So people like that are huge for us and we try to stick together with the craft guys.For sure.

Charlie Kady:
Oh yeah, no, there's definitely a tightening of everything going on, but we love it. You guys are keep going and I mean we love it. It's going to keep growing and we love what Carmel does, so.

John Strauss:
I think one thing I love Drew to talk about before we leave is about this area and how turning Bellwoods was your stomping ground.

Charlie Kady:
I remember the first time I met you, I think the first time I met you and Billy was at that, it was the Percy Times Carmel. You guys did that collaboration on the Live Horizon.

John Strauss:
And the park.

Charlie Kady:
Seems like forever ago. Riverdale Park.

Drew Lian:
Maybe a couple years ago?

Charlie Kady:
Couple years ago. But I have this great memory of meeting you guys and learning about what Charlie just brought to our attention there.

Drew Lian:
Oh, yeah. This neighbourhood, I don't know if you guys remember the Bellwoods Dispensary.

Charlie Kady:
Yeah, yeah.

Drew Lian:
Right opposite the park. That's my homie Mark and his partner Jeff, they ran that spot. They got popped a couple times, I think three times back to back. It was more than any other store. And they got shut down. This is obviously black market time and even just around the corner here.

Sean Kady:
So they were your partners. They were for lack of term distributor partners of people. They were selling your weed.

Drew Lian:
They were the only were dispensary in Toronto that I would sell Dark Helmet to.

Sean Kady:
Wow. That's where the legend of Dark Helmet started then, I guess, was in Trinity-Bellwoods.

Drew Lian:
Yes.

Sean Kady:
I love that. I'm going to tell people that story-

Drew Lian:
For sure. And just pass it over here. There was this orange door I was telling Johnny. That's bike guy. We had a guy that used to grab a bunch of packs and he lived behind that orange door and he had the two upper levels and I was telling him that story, but-

Charlie Kady:
Nice.
Man, I think that all that experience that you bring from the legacy market to the legal market is part of the reason Carmel's so successful. So I just think that it's wicked that you have those roots and have brought it over to the legacy side. Do you think that other people, I mean to the legal side, do you think that other people that are in the legacy market growing are afraid to come over to this side?

Drew Lian:
Well-

Charlie Kady:
For you must still have friends. I don't know, I'm assuming.

Drew Lian:
Hundred percent. Well the exciting thing is when we started Carmel, we were like, why does legal weight sucks so bad? We want to be ultra competitive and up the game so that a lot more LPs or producers or micros are going to put really good product competition.

Charlie Kady:
Let's push this thing. We want to push the envelope and be the gold standard, which I think you guys have.

John Strauss:
A hundred percent. We did. We're just happy that the quality has gone up in the last four years at a competition and just a lot more people coming online. If you know Carmel like we bring our homies from the black market, either jobs with us or when their LPs are coming online or they're micro or helping them apply for their micro or their LP. Just so that they can use our platform to come online, so-

Charlie Kady:
You guys value that experience, right? I'm assuming? Yeah. Yeah.

Drew Lian:
A hundred percent.

Charlie Kady:
Embrace it.

Drew Lian:
And we don't want anybody to get left behind because a lot of my friends that were black market growers as well, the black market's changed. Dead. Packs are so cheap, it's not even worth growing black market any more really. But to give them that opportunity and to also put them under the Carmel banner, my buddy genetic Mike, you might recognise him from Northern Canada. He just completed his first couple lots for us. Oh, wow. I don't know if we can chat about that?

John Strauss:
Yeah, we can chat about it.

Charlie Kady:
Very cool.

Drew Lian:
So he's got this crazy cutting that he pheno hunted. It's Golden Crisp. It's a GMO cross to Cereal Milk. And it doesn't even make sense because when you hear the name Golden Crisp, obviously you're thinking-

Charlie Kady:
The cereal.

Sean Kady:
Cereal Golden Crisp. I don't even know what that animal was. I think of the cereal.

Charlie Kady:
Honey Crisp.

Drew Lian:
It was like-

Charlie Kady:
Yeah, I think Honey Crisp.

Sean Kady:
Apple Jacks I think it was called the cereal.

Charlie Kady:
I think so.

John Strauss:
Anyways, you crack the barrel after his cure and it's pure apples down the hallway. It's so-

Sean Kady:
Crazy. Really.

Drew Lian:
It's so exciting. I don't know how GMO something so savoury could throw an apple smell, but I'm so fired up about that one. That one smells so good and it slaps. Everybody loves that one. And also he got famous in the legacy market for PPR. Okay. PPR was floating around Ontario. It actually went across Canada. That's that Platinum Punch Remix, so.

Sean Kady:
Platinum Punch Remix. Okay. Yeah, I was going to say, what does that show for everyone who doesn't know?

Drew Lian:
So he is the only guy with PPR and he made that strain famous. So that will be probably a follow-up launch just to, so that we can bring legal PPR. I can't even believe it's going to be a thing.

Sean Kady:
And you think Platinum is always super strong.

Drew Lian:
So Frosty.

Sean Kady:
Yeah, super frosty, super strong. I'm sure that'll do well for you guys.

John Strauss:
His cut is really gassy too, which is right up our alley. So we're pretty excited about that's.

Sean Kady:
So you guys have cut this down or in the process. We'll see it in the next few months kind of thing?

John Strauss:
He's got it growing. I think maybe a fall drop for that one.

Sean Kady:
Okay. Wow.

John Strauss:
It just that highlights the pheno series is really cool for us. Because we get to bring these guys who Drew and Billy might have known from the black market and work with them to build them a brand on the rec markets. So then if they can eventually go take that brand and maybe have their own brand so they can use our pheno series as a stepping stone to build their own brand in the rec market. Which I think is sick because a lot of companies they'll white label and they'll bring other people's product to market, but they won't show who the grower is. They won't tell any info.
Whereas when we launch with a new grower, we try to do a little bio on them and share as much info as possible with the new grower. So I think it's a cool programme we've kind of developed and we're really stoked when these guys are killing it and they're doing their own thing like Papers Craft Co. They're-

Charlie Kady:
They're trying to launch and-

John Strauss:
I'm not sure if they're trying to launch, they might actually have their flower in Alberta, but we have their flower in Alberta. But just working with them has been awesome to see them grow. And next Friday they were noble grow. We brought their pheno into the market. Now they're their own LP and killing it in Ontario and a bunch of other markets. So I think stuff like that is pretty cool to see how these pheno series can help these guys out.

Charlie Kady:
Help the homies out.

John Strauss:
And they help us out. Because they grow [inaudible 00:59:15].

Sean Kady:
Yeah. We talk a lot about rotational SKUs we have in the past on the show and I guess you guys are kind of one of the first ones to do it. So that's pretty brilliant. And so just wanted to say congrats for doing it so successfully. I think that all of the drops have had a cold falling in one way or another. I've had people that really liked it. Whether you loved it or hate it, I don't know. I think strains are so-

John Strauss:
It's an awesome way to rotate.

Sean Kady:
What I love, you aren't going to love, Charlie's not going to love. So each one has been really special to different people and congratulations on achieving that and keeping that consistency and standard really high, so.

John Strauss:
Appreciate it.

Charlie Kady:
Can't wait to try these next one.

Sean Kady:
Yeah, I'm thinking we got to crack open a bag of that Ksmorz, man.

John Strauss:
Yeah, you guys got to check it out.

Sean Kady:
Let's check it out. Why not?

Charlie Kady:
All right, so as you said, you got the genetics here, Prolific Coast Seeds, Zookies X PCS1. I don't even know what PCS stands for.

Drew Lian:
Yeah. So Coma had all his favourite OGs crossed into a male and that's PCS1. Now he has all his favourite OG males across the M, which is PCS2. So this is part of his first line.

Sean Kady:
I wanted to ask, there was something that popped in my head, John. I feel like I said that certain people use not as quality Mylars that you guys do. You guys use a better Mylar bag in my opinion too and I know that you do put nitrogen in them as well.

John Strauss:
Yeah. So yeah.

Sean Kady:
Can you speak to that process at all [inaudible 01:00:42]-

John Strauss:
Yeah, for sure.

Sean Kady:
Because that's wonderful.

John Strauss:
We've slowly developed new bags as we've grown. We started with the Mylar bag. We were the first ones to use a nitrogen filled Mylar pouch, which is pretty cool to see a bunch of other LPs come to market and follow that system. It shows that we were doing something right with that bag. And I think filling it with nitrogen is a huge step. It kind of oxygen just naturally degrades flowers. So the nitrogen keeps in those terpenes and we're kind of like, it's funny with us, Drew's very anti-humidity pouches. That was something we never wanted to do. But once more LPs started doing it, there was an overwhelming demand from consumers-

Sean Kady:
For doing it.

John Strauss:
...for them. So we just decided fuck it. If everyone wants it, we'll do it.

Sean Kady:
I don't know how to feel. I'm the same way.

Drew Lian:
[inaudible 01:01:26]

Sean Kady:
Yeah, I've heard that before too. [inaudible 01:01:32].

Drew Lian:
Decided, but sometimes I don't know man.

John Strauss:
Yeah, we'll have, I find with the humidity packs it mutes it a little bit more in the bag. But then once you bust open the nug, you get that full nose. But I think if you compare a bag without one and then one with it, you'd notice it does mute it a little bit.

Sean Kady:
Yeah, I mean the first thing I notice is soon for me, the terp shield, I take it out of the bag as soon as I open a bag from you guys. Terp shield goes away, put it into a jar. And I find once it opens up it's not the biggest deal.

John Strauss:
Yeah, for sure.

Sean Kady:
But I do agree with you. It is stealing terps over time. That being said, I mean I guess John you could speak to this too. I'm sure certain dispensaries, we fly Carmel, so I don't think it would be an issue for us. But some guys they do because it's going to sit on their lap a little bit. [inaudible 01:02:12] said everyone expect it.

John Strauss:
Yeah, you have some stores that they just can't move craft as quickly. They can't move premium. So sometimes they'll sit on a case for six months and that will dry out. No matter how well cured your flower is, if it's in a warm environment, it's going to dry it out. So it's a little bit of an insurance policy for us that we don't have to drive around picking up old packages because yeah, it was-

Sean Kady:
I think that's legit man. I mean at the end of the day too, our market is different. Sometimes I'll get a bag and it's already, not your bags ever, but it's already five months in the bag.

John Strauss:
Our sales-

Sean Kady:
I mean that happens and that's [inaudible 01:02:44]-

John Strauss:
Our sales team tries to see on top of it when we're out in market and I actually actively hunt for old product and try to buy it from our... I still want someone, if they're paying our price point for a bag, I don't want to have a bad experience. So quality control is, I think it goes past even what goes on in the facility, it's like what's going on in market. If you've got a store selling one year old product. Last week I went into a store and bought a pack of peanut butter breath pre-rolls. Because I don't want anyone smoking something that's a year and a half old. Then they're going to have a horrible experience and they're going to be like, "Oh, Carmel's shit."

Charlie Kady:
[inaudible 01:03:17] Yeah. It's just interesting. Every store is different for sure.

Sean Kady:
Our mom, her favourite we is Carmel. I have to shout that out too. A mass shout out, Mom Rose. She's a huge Carmel fan. She still asks for the Tiger Cake. She's like, "I can't find it anywhere. Do you guys have any more of the Tiger Cake?" I'm like, "Mom, I've got bad news for you. I'm sorry. The Tiger cakes are tired." She's like, "Why? Why?"

John Strauss:
If she likes Tiger cake, you have to give her the Ksmorz. Because I find some similarities there.

Charlie Kady:
Smell nice.

Sean Kady:
It smells unreal guys.

Drew Lian:
It's so gassy.

Sean Kady:
It's like sweet with a lot of gas. I would say there is a sweetness to it as well and something kind of floral and spicy there. It's a little spicy in there.

John Strauss:
We kept on, when we'd open up the cure jar for that one, we'd get all giddy because it was just pure gasoline. It was our co-founder Roey opened it up and he's like, "That's offensive." He's like, "That's sick for us." But it's like, "Wow, that reeks from the cure barrel." I love that. So yeah, we're stoked on that one. I

Sean Kady:
Always felt, like I said before I knew or met you guys and obviously I know a lot more about the brand. I always thought you guys were kind of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. It was very mysterious. I didn't even know who owned Carmel. Can you speak about the partners and who they are and what their backgrounds are and how they got into it?

John Strauss:
Yeah, for sure. So it's Roey, Dustin. They're childhood friends. They went to school together. Roey's background's a lawyer. Dustin's background is real estate. Roey got tired of the corporate game of the lawyer gig and he reached out to Dustin. They were kind enough to give him an office to brainstorm and they just threw ideas back and forth. And they landed on cannabis and they wanted to get in the cannabis space. And at that time I saw the writing on the wall for the black market. I saw packs were getting cheaper and cheaper. And I started mentioning to a couple people I would be interested in a master grower position. We used to joke around about it because in the black market there's no [inaudible 01:05:16]

Sean Kady:
Doesn't exist.

John Strauss:
But legally a grow, anybody that's been in a craft for 10 years is a master. So master, I can see how that happens. Yeah. So by telling a couple of my friends, one of my friends was with Roey and Dustin on one other project and they were like, by any chance do a master grower? And my buddy was like, actually I do.

Charlie Kady:
No.

John Strauss:
And they had been asking you ask around four or five years ago, "Do you know a master grower?" Chances are probably not. So my buddy Alex, he recommended me to Roey and Dustin and they set up an interview and then my other buddy, mark that ran Bellwoods Dispensary, he was playing golf at his local club with a investor for Carmel and was just asking for an update. "How is the process moving? Have you guys found a grower yet?" And the guy's like, "Yeah, we have an interview with this guy. He's highly recommended. His name's Drew and my buddy was Drew with dreadlocks."

Sean Kady:
You're like, "My Drew?"

John Strauss:
Yeah, yeah. And Mark was like, "Yo, that's the craziest grower in Canada. If you have an opportunity to grab him, grab him." So I had two different friend groups recommended me to the same people.

Charlie Kady:
Well that's funny, so.

Sean Kady:
That's the legend. That's the legend. How it was born.

Drew Lian:
How it was born. And meeting Roey and Dustin and them just emphasis on quality and no shortcuts. Whatever you need to bring the blueprint to the legal market. You can have whatever tools you need.

Charlie Kady:
Any tools, yeah.

Sean Kady:
Yeah. Me and Charlie talk about this all the time, but you guys are also on the LP side, have really just built out an amazing team. We talk about how important it is to surround yourself by incredible people and like you said, we're his family or whatever close friends, and just doing it right. And being committed to putting out really amazing product-

Charlie Kady:
Comes out in the end product. Exactly.

Sean Kady:
Thank you so much guys. I think that's all we have. The time we have for today. I could keep talking to you.

John Strauss:
Wow, it just flew by.

Charlie Kady:
Yeah, it was quick.

Sean Kady:
That quite flew by. Don't forget to follow at HigherOrbit. We're doing a Puffco giveaway too. I told John you got to enter.

John Strauss:
I'm getting in on that. Yeah.

Sean Kady:
Yeah. So two Puffcos that we're giving away at the end of the month. And don't forget to follow at Carmel, Carmel official.

John Strauss:
And watch out for the new drops come in July 11th.

Sean Kady:
Yeah. Ksmorz-

John Strauss:
The Ksmorz-

Sean Kady:
I can smell it.

John Strauss:
...and OZ Kush Cake and 14 gramme of Animal Face.

Sean Kady:
14 gramme of animal face. And we're going to try the Ksmorz, the pre-roll packs. That's 14 pre-roll packs.

John Strauss:
12 pack Animal Face pre-roll August.

Sean Kady:
And we're going to get Billy on the show.

John Strauss:
Oh dude, he loves... He watches this. I bet you he watches this.

Sean Kady:
All right. All right.

Drew Lian:
And thanks so much guys. Thanks so much for having us.

John Strauss:
Yeah, thank you for having us.

Drew Lian:
All the love and support. We were really grateful that you always give us so much love and thanks for inviting us. This is a great time.

Sean Kady:
Yeah, we're coming to the facility soon. Until next time, guys.