"Our founder grew up in California in the late 70's and early 80's. His father was US Navy Veteran, and also a well connected drug dealer during the 1960-70's. He was, more importantly, also a grower of cannabis. And starting in the late 1960's, his father began a business relationship with a certain motorcycle club. Which soon flourished into him being a main supplier of cannabis, cocaine, and LSD to some of the larger chapters of this club in California. This was the beginning of a loose collection of growers and cannabis breeders, who were all also military veterans and connected to motorcycle clubs from California to British Columbia. They met during camping trips up and down the PNW, and traded seeds, stories, and did their business with their families in tow all while camping out in the woods.
This was eventually how Romulan came to be, but it was first known by a very different name: Port Alberni Pinebud. In California, it was called Pine Mtn. bud among a few other names. But it was all coming from the same source, that group of veterans who grew and met during camping trips together. They started meeting up, and eventually working together on the cannabis they were breeding. It started well before Jake's father got involved, with veterans returning home from the Korean war. They brought back seeds from an amazing strain they had sampled, called Thai. The Korean Thai seeds were grown back home in the BC area, and Norcal area but these veterans found it very difficult to grow in those regions. Eventually when Jake's father and other veterans got involved, they introduced a Mexican sativa into the mix. And later a Colombian landrace was added, most likely Colombian Red, in the late 1970's. Eventually an Afghani Indica was bred in, but they did not like the results entirely, so they back crossed it with the Colombian Red again before they found what they were looking for. This original set of F1 seed stock are what brought P. Alberni Pinebud, P.A. Purple, and other notable strains to come from that region at that time. It was also at around this time, that Federal Agencies began to crack down on this groups members and their activities. This forced them to no longer meet together, and pushed the resulting strains and growers into more remote areas.
But that still doesn't cover how it became Romulan, and the last interesting connection to our founder Jake. "Romulan Joe" is who brought the strain to the masses initially. Most everyone knows this part of the story, but many also get things mixed up. Joe was not a Vietnam veteran, he was too young for that. His family owned a Nursery in Southern California, the same Nursery that Jake's father frequented to get his supplies. Joe worked at his families nursery when he was young, and a teen. He often helped load trucks, and generally help customers out once they had paid. This over time developed a friendship and connection, and eventually led to Joe getting a hold of a cutting of what he later named Romulan. Joe cloned his cut for years, and that is where the Romulan part of the story began. But he acquired that cut from either our founders father or someone close to him. Unlike what most rumors spread over the years have said, the true source of Romulan was never from a Vietnam Veteran, Oakland Biker, turned Emerald Triangle OG... it was from a group of growers, that were all veterans first and foremost, and also bikers, that spread from Vancouver, B.C. to California.
That exact strain, was Joe's and Joe's only and it should be noted that the specific "Joe's Cut Romulan" has essentially been lost to time as currently no known growers/breeders still have his original and pure, cloned plant alive. What we grow here, is very similar to Joe's cut of Romulan, but not the exact same thing.. rather it is a slightly different phenotype from the same familial generation. Our prized mother plant, and "cut", differs in that she has larger yields and her flavor has more complexity involving a skunkiness with her pine."
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