Ice Cream Cake from Fresh Baked via The Circle in Long Beach on 12/10/2020 (big thanks to Fresh Baked and The Circle for making it happen!). THC tested out to 27.37%. I was gifted this jar but it typically goes for $50 at The Circle. Huge shoutout up top to Abstrax Labs for reasons that will become clear later in the review. When I saw that Fresh Baked was putting out a limited edition Ice Cream Cake right before Christmas I knew I had to get my hands on some, so when they reached out and asked if I wanted to give it a shot, I excitedly jumped at the chance. Two beautiful beefy buds comprise the entire jar. The surface is mostly a deep rich eggplant purple with occasional patches of kelly green, tightly coiled bursts of copper colored pistils, and an astonishing deluge of fully intact parchment white triches.

The nose out of the jar is a sweet vaporous must with a touch of pastry on the backside. It really jumps out at me, as soon as I pop open the jar it elicits a visceral gut reaction that signals to every part of my body that this is some GOOD shit. Busting open a bud, a sweet creamy sugar emerges coupled with a sweet pastry that pretty much obliterates the musty element that was present moments earlier. Breaking it down by hand, it leaves a smattering of triches on the fingers as well as a sweet musty cream with a slightly mint backing on the fingertips, while the grinds themselves come off like a gassy berry danish with a sweet cream finish. The dry pull on the joint hits with a sweet vaporous minty cream that left a york peppermint patty like freshness on my lip. The inhale is smooth and comes with a sweet creamy perfume like floral and a touch of mint on the bong, whereas on the joint, it’s more of a musty near eucalyptus like mint. The exhale is a delicious musty sweet cream with a mint twist on both the bong and the joint. Cross checking the flavors on my Ghost Vapes MV1, at 170c it comes with a very minty floral coupled with a strong piney tang, whereas at 185c it’s more of a straight piney floral with a skunky beer follow up. Enter the awesome folks at Abstrax Labs. Utilizing advanced chemical techniques far beyond my understanding, they’re able to take small samples of bud and run it through a process that reveals every terpene and aroma compound within it and make it into an easy to read data sheet, which I thought would be fun and informative to compare against my subjective experience with any given strain. While it may not align perfectly with my individual take on the strain, it is interesting to go over the data and see how it matches up with my experience, and maybe give me some better and broader understanding of flavors that are difficult to pin down.

The headchange comes on quick and with an extremely healthy smack. There’s an aura of feel good energy that immediately enveloped me, along with a broad hazy feeling that sat right on the top of my eyes, as an ASMR like tingle made its way across my skull and into the base of my neck. Mentally I feel a bit stunted, fumbling for the proper vocabulary in the moment, and getting a near uncomfortable amount of that “tip of the tongue” feeling depending on how much talking I’m having to do. In my notes I describe it as a sort of “drunk” high as I feel rosy cheeked, happily discombobulated, and am laughing my ass off at some incredibly dumb thoughts. I’d recommend avoiding activities that require extreme focus as you’ll not be able to pull it together after smoking this, but it’s perfectly suited for a small chatty gathering amongst a few friends, although you might find yourself running out of steam as time goes on and looking for a couch to kick back on and rest your eyes for a few minutes. All and all I really enjoyed this batch of Ice Cream Cake, and while I might avoid smoking it first thing in the morning, it makes a perfect complement to agendaless day where your only concern is getting lit and being happy. Fresh Baked continued to impress, they are definitely putting out some of the best weed on the recreational market, and if you haven’t tried anything from them yet you are truly missing out. Excellent job Fresh Baked, the level of care and expertise is evident in everything you produce, keep up the fantastic work!