NUWU Sessions: Aether Gardens talks Ganjier, Trichome Institute and the growth of the cannabis industry

Welcome to NUWU Sessions, where we invite guests to enjoy one of our top-shelf table packages in Las Vegas' first and only cannabis consumption lounge: The Vegas Tasting Room. We are excited to have Davin Homan & Justin Lindwall of AETHER GARDENS in today's episode. Watch as we discuss their pre-cannabis careers and how they've built the AETHER GARDENS brand while enjoying some of their products. It's only here on NuWu Sessions, so let's get into it!" 

About Aether Gardens

On this episode of the NUWU Sessions Podcast, we're excited to speak about the ethereal brand Aether Gardens. Founded in 2016, the company broke ground on a 120,000-square-foot medical and adult-use cultivation and production facility in Las Vegas, Nevada. The brand is inspired by the mythologically divine. Their mission is rooted in their belief in the medical and transcendent value of cannabis. The brand is inspired by the Greek pantheon is considered a product that is "Fit for the Gods." One of their first products to launch under Aether Gardens was a set of disposable vape pens named after the Greek Gods such as Zeus, Athena, and Poseidon. These bold strains were popular enough to soar them through the early stages of their production. Since then, they've expanded to flower, concentrates, and prerolls and their product lines are still growing! 

About the Team

As for the guests representing the brand today, we have the pleasure of interviewing two individuals from different backgrounds in the cannabis community. Yet their passion for cannabis and the education behind the plant is unparalleled. Now, let's introduce Davin Homan, the V.P. of Sales and Marketing, and Justin Lindwall, the Cultivation Lab Manager at Aether Gardens. 

 Interview Q&A

We want to talk about Aether Gardens and all the brands you guys encompass, but let's start by taking it back. What were you guys doing before cannabis?

Davin - I'll jump this off. Man, it's been a great journey since 2018. NUWU is one of those stores that, when I first got into the industry in 2018, Justin brought me here, and I was just floored by the size and the magnitude of what was going on here. I came from a career in wine, financial advising, and hospitality. I loved doing that for a while, but I felt the burnout and always had a calling to cannabis. 

I remember seeing my grandmother take Marinol while battling cancer and trying to get her appetite up. But it made her a little schizophrenic because it's so psychoactive on an 85-year-old woman. I never knew that until about ten years after that event, my father told me, "Oh, they're prescribing her T.H.C. products," My first thought was, "Wait, why not the plant?" As I started that journey and chose this industry, it was always in the back of my mind to steward the cannabis plant. 

Justin - I think it's always much more profound when it's personal. You know, it's like when I got involved with cannabis, I was about 12 years old, at a very young age. I had a lot of older friends that grew and sold. I was born and raised in Southern California. Some of the best weed comes from that area. I just had a great relationship with the plant personally. 

Yet, dealing with the stigma of growing up can be alienating. Even though I had a real passion and love for this plant, everyone hated it, including my mom and grandmother, who are Bible-thumping Christians. So, I hated my relationship with the plant for a long time. I couldn't come out of the weed closet. They were always finding my contraband, and I was always hiding or denying that I had any cannabis on me. 

My mom knew I smoked weed, so I was always with the plant. It's been a rocky road. I've had my heart broken with this plant many times. Whether it's on the other side of the law or bad relationships with people involved in the plant, they didn't have the same mission statements we have. It's been a long, rough journey, but now it's beyond that. It's safe, and now I have a card to sell cannabis, which is so weird. 

Since you're both daily cannabis users, what are your preferred consumption methods?

Davin - I never answer correctly, but hopefully, I'll get it right this time. To me, it's all about set and setting. I probably smoke every way and every type of product, just not all the time. For example, before work, I don't want to run back and brush my teeth or wash my hands depending on the meeting I'm going to. So maybe I smoke a vape or a dab at night when I'm home, and it's my time. It just depends on what you're doing and who you're with.

Justin - I'm a dab head, a concentrate kind of guy. I've been growing weed for a long time, almost two decades. And I went through my blunt and joint rolling phase when I was about 17. So I like a good joint every now and then, but I like a donut or hash hole or something that's going to be more potent and worth the time to roll and smoke it. Dabs tend to be quick and instant. I am currently smoking a lot of ice water hash rosin. I like that there's CBGa, which is good for my body. Since fibromyalgia is something that runs in my family, which is a disease that attacks the body heavily, my body needs the compounds that are found in the cannabis plant. 

For the cannaseurs at home, do you have a favorite strain?

Davin - Strain's a tough one because as our job and Justin and I are both Ganjiers, I'm always on a mission to find the next flavor profile. So I almost hunt for the overall aroma profile first. I'm a big fan of Terpinolene; I like that lemon Fabuloso smell. That would be more narrow-leaf plants, more Sativa, jacks, lemon, and even mango flavors.

Justin - That's a hard one on the strains. It's so different now. In the commercialization of it and the recreational side, we're driven by T.H.C. and numbers. We're also driven by clever marketing and hype brands with nice-looking packaging. Still, once you open it and smoke, it tastes different. Everything tastes like Runtz nowadays. It's because everything has been bred with each other, they've all been crossbred and interbred, and it's really losing its potency. In the medical market, especially in California, you had so many different collectives, of which I was a part. I was growing for veterans, and we had other growers within the group and circle growing a handful of cultivars that don't exist anymore because of the T.H.C. I had a strain of AFGhoo, which was incredible, and it tested at 11%, but my body buzzed and got tingly like you had taken some opiate. It was a super sedative. It was also the ugliest-looking flower. Some budtenders recommended it, which made me speak to the grower to try and get a cut of that strain. At the time, many O.G. strains were going around, and the O.G.s were considered the super strains, with high potency above 20% T.H.C., which was back in 2012. Yet, now everything is 30% T.H.C. or higher; otherwise, consumers don't want it.

A couple of the strains we're currently working on are a couple of crosses. One is a Fiji Apple Crasher; it's essentially a Cake Crasher crossed with Apple Fritter, but these are hand-selected by a team out in San Diego BudMart. We worked on getting that cut for about two years and found it, at 30% T.H.C., smells incredibly gassy and skunky but also like cran-grape apple. 

What are some of the extracts we'll be sampling today in the V.I.P. Table Package?

Davin - We have the Aether Live Rosin Slurricane. So, it's fresh frozen plant material washed and freeze-dried, then we removed all the water and pressed it by hand. Instead of doing an automated press and risking creating inferior material, we hand-pressed and collected that first press and allowed that to cold-cure over time. About 30 days of cold curing, maybe longer. 

Justin - You know, everyone's tech is different, and I guess everyone has their secret sauce depending on what times and what they're trying to get out of it. Sometimes if we're trying to jam it out, it will be a different temperature and time. At this point, everyone is experimenting. There's no right or wrong way to go about it.

Davin - Honestly, I tried full melt, fresh-pressed Rosin the other day, and I've never had something better. It was a five-hour high. Right now, with our process, you press it, and worst case scenario, you send it to the lab that next day. Then three or four days go by, and then you get it. There are roughly two weeks between processing it and getting the final product. But d I've never tasted so much flavor and the effects on the body. 

In this industry, hand-selected cultivars will become the next stage (think subway-style), where you can mix and match the products you want and get a fresh-press product. I bet that's the future. 

Justin - Or we could eventually equip the consumer with a device that can immediately press the product and give them fresh concentrate. All they have to do is add a little pressure to the product, and they have concentrate that will give them a great high.

So how did you guys come into working for Aether Gardens? How did that journey start?

Justin - I'll start on this one. The music industry is challenging, and I have already been in the cannabis industry for some time. I moved out in 2017 to manage a D.J. working with Tiësto and Steve Aoki, but things were not working out. At that point, Proposition 64 in California was about to go through, which meant the death of all medical dispensaries. 

Then I came out here, and Las Vegas was becoming recreation in 2018, and I needed a job badly. I was at Starbucks just filling out resumes, and Aether Gardens popped up. The place looked incredible, and they mentioned benefits and that they were building a ten-acre greenhouse in the back of the building. I was ready to sign up. I thought it was the perfect marriage, at least for my sanity, because it was something stable. Before, there was no security. We could lose it all overnight. 

So I was in Aether Gardens for about three months, and we needed heavy firepower. But early on, they wanted me to hire my boss. I'm the cannabis guy, but I don't have the financial background and massive sales amount that [Davin] has. So, I had to find someone who was at a higher level than me. So, I was getting a lot of Alcohol representatives. I would ask what their cannabis experience was. No one had enough experience for me to be able to bring them into a dispensary without losing my credibility. So, H.R. tells me they had another person coming in for an interview. That's when Davin came in and when I asked what his experience with cannabis was, he said, "I smoke about a Jay a Day," and he was not lying. He killed the interview, already had a business plan in motion, and I told the team, "If we don't hire this guy, we're idiots!" And 4 years later, the rest is history.

Davin - I'll sum up mine. I grew up in Florida, and my first time smoking weed was when I was about 16. I only wanted to try it. I didn't really have it around it. It wasn't in my life. We grew up super Catholic and conservative, and I played sports my entire life. So much so that I didn't really have time for extracurriculars. 

Later, I spent some time in South Florida working with New York Life Insurance company, which was also too conservative for me. That was a family table, financial planning, mutual funds, and life insurance, and it just wasn't what I was tied to.

From there, I worked with a company called Diageo which covered Florida, Kentucky, and Indiana as a sales manager and with brand ambassador teams. Then I was asked to come to the west coast and run the operations in Nevada and Hawaii. That's why I moved to Vegas in 2014 and ran that business for five years. Bacardi acquired them for $5.1 billion, which was the biggest liquor acquisition at the time.

Once the acquisition was announced, five months went by, and that was a long five months for me to figure out what I wanted to do. I saw a lot of broken relationships, my own as well, and a lot of damage done by alcohol and partying. I just saw the commitment to gluttony, and that industry had no wellness aspect. So, I left and did some soul-searching when a buddy working in liquor was about to take this interview with Aether Gardens. Still, he just got a promotion and asked me to take his place. 

Then they mentioned the opportunities in cannabis, and this was two years after the state went recreational. So, there were only 40 dispensaries, and they were about to open up more licenses for dispensaries. There were talks about on-premise consumption lounges. Since I worked with casinos and hotels, there would be a lot of synergy in that opportunity. I wanted to sink my teeth into something and not feel like a cog in the wheel. I joined the alcohol industry in 2006 as a bartender and worked my way up through the industry. That was 70 years post-prohibition for that industry. I figured we're still in the later stages of prohibition with cannabis, but getting the chance to learn from a legacy operator like Justin showed me where I could fit in operation. My role was to be the glue between natural corporate hedge-fund groups because I understood financial backgrounds and business management. Then I understood the plant because I studied agave and was a Tequila Certified instructor back in the day. So, I was constantly learning about the commodity and that aggro-product that goes to make the finished product. 

So, once Aether Gardens hired you, what were the next steps? What was the mission statement after you guys joined the team?

Davin - So, Justin joined the team in April 2018, just as they were harvesting their first harvest, a tiny little portable cube, to activate the license before the flower moved inside. I joined in August of 2018, and by then, we were probably on about our fourth harvest. We had a bit of inventory and about five dispensaries as a shop. And we were trying to get it going from there, but we only sold three products, prerolls by Binske. This was another person's brand, but it's what we used to enter the market. Binske was initially out of Colorado. They're in about 15 states, and they're doing well. But at the time, we were selling prerolls, live resin concentrates, and live resin cartridges. We were not selling bulk flower or shelf flower. We just came at it as a producer, which is even more challenging. Typically, you get known for your flower. Then you flank it with production items, and we did the opposite, which is counter-intuitive. Still, our struggle led to our position in the market as a high-quality player. Whether or not you purchase one of these Brands, you've bought one of our products through the ecosystem of Nevada. 

How many brands do you guys have now?

Davin - We have seven brands in motion right now in Nevada, and we've launched 10 in total to the state, and we're making some transitions right now. Right now, we're looking to get tighter with one of the groups we have internally. We'll keep moving forward, innovating, feeding the ecosystem, and trying to have high-quality cultivars and a lot of diversity.

I'm a big fan of your packaging as well. Can we go into the details of how the packaging came to be?

Justin - That had to do with Binske and its owners, the brothers Alex and Jake Pasternack. They're incredible visionaries with their brand. They always led with a farm-to-table element, and that being said, they hired a great artist to do the collage work. It's from Cut It Out Studios, a studio specializing in Collage Art. They cut all the images and paste them into one, making it look like a 3D image. 

Davin - They originally were going to use that artwork to build out a vertical dispensary because they have a growing production and kitchen in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and that fell through. Then they had all this artwork and decided to include it in the packaging because, at that point, they launched around 2016 -2017. There's been a lot of progression between where they were and where they are now. 

Justin - It's not just the packaging that stands out for the brand. It's also the quality, you know? We couldn't have anything in those boxes that wouldn't represent it properly. No one had that concept yet, because it was all cured crumbles, but then live resin started picking up. No one had live resin at that time in this market, they did, but it was Nevada's version of live resin, which was like Terpex, which was garbage. I would come out and smoke that, and I'd have panic attacks! Then you would see live resin shatter, which blew up in 2018. 

Davin - For me, it speaks to nostalgia. Gary Vee always says, "Nostalgia is underrated." So even though we're always looking towards the future, we still take a long, strong look at the past to see where it came from and what's next. So, let's look back to 2018. It took us three to three and a half years to get Rosin going. Look at New Mexico's market; they just went recreational in April. They already have Rosin players. I'm not fearful of the future. It will be way more competitive than anybody's talking about. So, having the right position, mindset, and mentality about cannabis and creating influential Regional Brands while asking how this plays into the culture of Las Vegas vs. California vs. Florida.

What are your thoughts on federal legalization? 

Justin - I think we're still pretty far away from that. The banks don't want to play with us at this point in time. You can get private funding, and the credit unions are stepping up. If you're minority-owned, they will give you some benefits there. However, for the most part, there's just so much damage on the federal level that still affects all sorts of people. 

Davin - In my opinion, when I look at it from the side of taxation and banking, the smartest thing we could do in the short term is fix the banking element. Safe Harbor, you can't remove the 280e element, where you can't deduct the same cost of goods and services that you can in other industries. That's killing it, so your total effective tax rate is +30%. What they're nervous about is if you become federal, there are new taxes involved. Will those taxes be on top of the state taxes or not? That could look like 40% + in taxes, and the industry won't survive against a legacy market. So, they should have adult use in all the states. Leave it up to the states to pardon anybody convicted of moving violations with cannabis. We respect what we do because every day we wake up to hustle, we remember that there are people in prison that were doing what we're doing now. 

For preserving our ecosystem, California, for example, is the mecca of cannabis. As a Ganjier, I respect the terroir up there. Yet, from a business point of view, I fear that in the short term, the opportunity that they can now continue to ship to Florida, New York, and everywhere. We're still being prepared to scale. That can quickly turn into the Amazon and Walmart effects. So, it's a different ball game e-commerce-wise. It's essential to prepare for that and have a plan, but I wouldn't consider legalization here within the next four to six years. 

To return to Aether Gardens, what sets your cultivation apart from others? 

Davin & Justin - The people.

Davin - They're such great individuals, and it's not just showing up to work. Everyone knows where they need to come together. Still, it's showing up to work, attacking the problems, and finding solutions daily. And pivoting the industry pivots daily, as do we, and we'll get a new request tomorrow for a large amount of product. 

Davin - Justin might think the cultivars are because the upcoming genetics are stellar.  

Justin - It's the team. We have a great group of people and individuals that know their stuff. We're in an extensive facility, and sometimes that can be tough, especially if you're trying to move up. 

Davin - Yeah, we've got about 95 employees at the facility. We run a full cultivation, four flower rooms now, a mother room, two vegetation, and a clone room. We have mixed light outside, so we have another 60,000 square feet, so we got Nevada's beautiful sun, adding some value to our flower. Even though we grow a good Platinum Cake, we also want to move forward. We're seeking a different flavor profile. We want to adjust and not just go for the cake strains, right? 

How long have you guys been making Rosin?

Davin - A little over a year, we started slowly by hand washing. Then we moved up to a little bit of automated washing, which helps to not beat up the bud as much, taking a paddle to it and releasing more chlorophyll, so this is a different system, more centrifugal, if you will. But mainly, we're trying to move forward with it. The application to anything solventless is almost endless.

What has been one of the most challenging aspects of scaling Aether Gardens?

Davin - I think the hardest part was joining an industry that was that the market shares were spoken for. Each product category had three to four people, so you were always a smaller fish in the industry. I didn't know anyone in this industry at the time. For example, flash forward to 2019; do you guys remember in August, there was a vape crisis? We were a producer specializing in Vape production, so a year into the business, boom! Nobody buys vapes, and we have to oversupply flower. Then once 2020 came in, we were getting rid of the oversupply of flower, and then Covid and everything shut down! In cannabis, we never had a break. Three days after the lockdown, Governor Sisolak made cannabis an essential business, so we were blessed to be able to work and not change our lifestyles. Still, I took no vacations for over two years, and everybody else got to work from home in their P.J.s, which I'm not saying is good or bad, but we never got the break. So I respect everybody who puts on their agent card and works with us daily. All competitors, all our partners, it's just respect.

Justin - Every year we take a trip to Northern Nevada, around 1800 miles round trip. We'll rent a truck with a U-Haul, fill it with swag from all of our brands, and then give it away! We also do training with all the budtenders and staff from different dispensaries, and we do as much as we can up there and it's fun! 

Let's talk about the future of Aether Gardens. How do you guys see the market changing over the next few years?

Davin - We're going into a phase with the consumption lounge applications closed here in the next week. That's the biggest thing now, what it all looks and feels like; only time will tell whether it will be coffee shops, yoga, concert venues, or what. The Chamber of Cannabis and the NCAA have been doing a great job of pushing the envelope forward. The bill would have never been written a couple of years ago if it wasn't for Steve Yeager and Scott Rutledge, who helped support that. 

If somebody tries this product and I can tell them precisely what we just told you over 2 minutes, I may have a fan for life. That moment is priceless, so the R.O.I. component of knowing if your product is good or not is crucial feedback to us as cultivators and producers without a dispensary. So, if I can have a program to know and almost leapfrog that retail transaction and go to the on-promise, it will be perfect! Yet, it will give a new dynamic to the concept of "Liquid the lips" in alcohol.

Regarding the future, do you guys have anything new coming down the pipeline? Any new strains or products?

Davin - We did drop the Binske Live Rosin cold cure and are also dropping that same cold cure into a preroll that will be a multi-pack and a single preroll. Those drop in about a week. That's the hottest drop from Aether Gardens.

Justin - Also, hunting some pretty incredible genetics and strains. We've been tied through the ganjier, and we can look at our genetics and certify them. I'll take them, and I'll run them through our S.A.P. (Systematic Assessment Protocol), which will give the genetic a certificate of what the ganjier has rated it far superior to a C.O.A. (Certificate of Analysis) because that's just testing terpenes. That's what will be different with the next than what we're going to bring in with these new strains. 

Words of advice for the next generation of cannabis entrepreneurs?

Justin - You better come with armor. 

Davin - this is a long-term game, even though we're adult use in Nevada. I still consider that we're in Federal Prohibition, so maybe 80 years down the line, we have to be visionary toward that vision of cannabis. So long as we know that and work backward a little bit, do the right things, and steward the right relationships. For us, we're students, so not only did we get our ganjier certifications during Covid because we wanted to be the best. We wanted to learn about the plat and become professional Interpreters with the Trichome Institute. We also got certified in Extraction fundamentals and Cannabis consultant, so we got ourselves ready. We learned Lean Six Sigma to be able to operate at a big level, whether nationally or globally. So we're trying to work on some super big project, not think small, and keep dreaming.

Conclusion  

This has been another NUWU Sessions blog post, where we update you on all that's happening with NUWU Sessions. Don't forget to follow Aether Gardens on Instagram and all their great product lines, such as Stiiizy, Binske, Herve Edibles, HuniLabs, The 55 & Pro Canna. Of course, if you want to try any of the Aether Gardens product lines featured in Nevada, check out our menu here at NUWU Cannabis Marketplace.