The Story of the “Sour” Diesel

Sour Origins

An East Coast, New York City legend, Sour Diesel is another one of those all-time classic, pioneer strains with a place in your heart that can’t be filled. In the circle of heavy hitters, there is no doubt in our mind that Sour Diesel has a place in the cypher. For more than 20 years, Sour Diesel has been enjoyed by cannabis enthusiasts all over the world. It’s definitely one of our staff favourites for its intense, almost psychedelic high that lasts for hours on end; but where does the famed Sour Diesel come from? Let’s go back in time and find out!

Talking about classic, Sour Diesel is one of those throwback, anytime strains that everybody has heard about, but nobody really knows much about it besides where it came from. One of those, put you on your ass types highs that keeps users coming back for more, but how did this player get into the game? Back when cannabis wasn’t as accepted, people bought, sold, and grew weed in secrecy. With Sour Diesel, there was no real introduction, no nitty gritty details, just vwoosh, this unknown player, Sour Diesel just jumped into the fray sometime around the early 90’s, and it’s been a wrap for the game since.

Breaking the Silence: Enter AJ

For years, there was nothing but speculation surrounding the true genetics of Sour Diesel, with numerous cuts and crosses being named as the supposed parents being spread all over the internet and by word of mouth. All the world knew was that the famed strain had its start in New York City. A man named AJ came forward to break the silence. Rather than calling himself the creator, AJ likes to think of himself as “the servant and keeper of Sour Diesel”. “Back then we called all good weed the diesel” he said. AJ goes on to comment to The Kindland:

“It’s called the Sour Diesel because it soured countless friendships, business relationships, and everything else…“It was like a magical power. If you had it, people would do whatever you asked them to. But it was also an evil power, a lot of envy and jealousy surrounded it. There was nothing else like it. There still isn’t, but at the time there was nothing even close. People would throw each other off a cliff to get to it. Backstabbing and mind control went along with it. It was like the sword of Excalibur, people just couldn’t handle it.” ^[1]

Chemdog and Chem 91

But just what is the Sour Diesel? The Sour Diesel started as a cut of Chem 91, the original “ChemDog” before it was “Chemdawg”. Back in the 90’s, AJ’s and his friend PBud were following the Grateful Dead as they were on tour, and happened to bring some of what they had at the time called “Dogbud”, a pheno of Hashplant, for the potent effect of having you roll over after you smoked it. Their crew wound up selling out at the concert, making friends with a young man who took the name of Chem.  He would play the next part in the conception of Sour Diesel into the world.

The friends stayed in touch, and wound up sending Chem some of the Dogbud to Massachusetts, which wound up having 13 lucky seeds.Of the 13 lucky seeds, Chem popped 4, tossing the 1st seed as it turned out to be male, a mistake that Chem regrets, but no use crying over spilt milk. The other 3 seeds went on to become Chem 91, Chem’s Sister, and Chem C, with Chem 91 being the powerhouse of the 3. Chem continued to work on the 91, while the story switches protagonists to a man named Weasel from Staten Island, at a Phisph concert in the Roseland Ballroom in NY, passing the story’s torch to him.

The Weasel with the Diesel

Weasel and Chem set up to trade cuts, and they did. At the time Weasel was working on a strain called RFK, another pheno of Hashplant that was named after the new stadium in D.C.. He wound up trading the RFK with another unamed strain, for Chem’s Chem 91 and Massachusetts Super Skunk. These two strains wound up being Weasel’s staple strains for a while.

Weasel went out to Amsterdam and a brought back a bunch of genetics from Sensi Seeds, to which he began experimenting with crossing into some of his own genetics that he already had. He went on to mix Chem 91 with Northern Lights to create “Underdog”, which AJ dubbed “Headband”, giving history another amazing strain, but he didn’t stop there. Weasel went on to tinker with the Underdog line, popping around 100 seeds. What he did next became the catalyst for our Sour Diesel.

A Twist of Fate

Weasel crossed the Massachusetts Super Skunk he got from Chem with his Underdog cut, creating a plant that also yielded a significant amount of seeds, or so the story goes. He only pulled a half pound, to which he sold to some people he knew called the “Albany” crew from Upstate New York. They grew out the seeds, and eventually gave Weasel a cut on their next meeting,  which he grew out, and then handed off to AJ, who carries the legacy on to this day.

There we have it folks. The true genetics of the legendary Sour Diesel is Mass. Super Skunk x Underdog [ Chem 91 x Northen Lights]. After being shrouded in mystery for so long, the truth is finally out there for all cannabis enthusiasts to know.

Cool Links

1) AJ Sour Diesel: The Strain That Launched A 1,000 Rifts
2) The Adam Dunn Show Of Weasel and Diesel 6 10 15