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In the mid-16th century, when the tulip was first introduced there, Western Europe fell in love with the new flower. The Dutch simply couldn’t get enough of the late blooming Tulip, contract prices on bulbs soared to ten times the average annual income of a skilled craftsman - for a single bulb! What goes up, must come down, and prices quickly collapsed, resulting in what many economists say is the first economic bubble. Girl Scout Cookies, allegedly a three-way cross of OG Kush, Durban Poison, and Cherry Kush (one stage of the cross being an accidental pollination from a hermaphroditic flower), was available to a few limited people who knew somebody in the Bay Area. When it first found its way to the Harborside clone counter, it was available for $50, or some such nonsense. It could be had a few weeks earlier on Craigslist for $500. Of course, counterfeits abounded, both at Harborside, and on Craigslist. I’m sure many unfortunate investors watched as their $500 cuts grew slowly (and it is a slow-growing cut) toward motherhood as prices tumbled, or cloned out their exclusive cookie cut just in time to find out it was actually sour diesel. I got mine when Dark Heart's cuts of it fell to under $20. That was a little over a year ago. Now, cookie cuts seem to cost the same as everything else does. This is an indeterminate cut, that starts a little slow, but stretches late into flower, forming solid branches, studded at intervals with dense, trichome covered buds. The leaves accumulate chlorophyll, growing deep green in the late weeks of flower, breaking to a rich purple with cooler conditions and a proper flush. Although the buds are dense, and of an easy and uniform quality, the yield is lower, due to greater spacing of individual internodes, and a lesser tendency to grow out its secondary branches. It does train well, but because of late stretch, will often grow in a taller, sparse patch, when compared to most other strains. This plant burns relatively easily, as it tends to concentrate nutrients in its fan leaves. This means that it requires both a longer flush, and a gentle hand with the bloom fertilizers. This plant, true to its origins, has shown a tendency to create the occasional staminate (male) flower, without much rhyme or reason as to its cause. These tend to form lower on the plant, in the first few weeks of flower, directly next to the stamen at the base of an internode on a main stem. They are not a cause for alarm, and will rarely pollinate neighboring plants, but they do occasionally pollinate the stamen they’re attached to. In this case, the stamen attached to the stem will begin to swell. The seeds formed will be a feminized self copy of the original plant, no more or less likely to hermie than its mother. My current cutting of cookies is actually a grown out seed from a flowered plant. I have found these seeds a few times. This plant produces almost completely dense buds when grown with a reasonable canopy depth. Waiting until the second or third week of flower to trim undergrowth will help somewhat with density, while avoiding stretch. I find that this cut takes 9-10 weeks to finish. The cured buds have aromas of menthol, lemon grass, dankness, and a hint of curacao. Early in the cure, menthol predominates, fading while the dankness increases as the cure progresses. The final effect after a few months is a minty sour diesel with extra dankness. The overall intensity of this cut is impressive, in terms of aroma, density, and potency. Any cut with such intense popularity will attract its detractors, and Cookies is no exception. This cut has several downsides: low yield, difficult stretch, a tendency to burn and a long flush time. The first batch of Cookies crosses and variants (I’ve even got a Blue Cheese x Cookies cut I worked up that shows promise) are just starting to arrive at the clone counters, and eventually we’re likely to see a cross that retains the good while losing all the bad. But for now, if you want a jar full of Cookies, you’ll have to make do.