by Ben Horner
What? Jerry Garcia is grateful and dead, but not enough for the “family” going all out on a mega licensing deal that takes aim at being the number one corporate cannabis brand. I reached out to Kyle Barich, who has the honor of being Garcia Hand Picked corporate marketing executive, to get a better understanding of this new mainstream approach to commercial cannabis. Then I was off to sample the strains at the Michigan dispensary chain, where I met great staff and let it all sink in.
Jerry Garcia was the iconic musician and leader of the jam band, the Grateful Dead, which has a long tradition and cult following of “Deadheads.” Deadhead roadies toured around the country often immersed in the drug culture of psychedelics, pot, and other flower power-like ideologies. Jerry was a bridge from the beatniks, blues, and jazz grass smokers to the hippies and then, later, the heads. He paid tribute to lost poets like Herbert Huncke by paying his rent in New York in his later years, preserving the tradition and history of how white scholars like Ginsberg and Burroughs opened white America to music and weed as a gateway to a new way of thinking and being.
Before the interview with Kyle, we looked at his background to find that he was deeply involved with marketing for the Pfizer drug Viagra, which made sense in some way in this new corporate cannabis business model. The company that he now works for, Holistic Industries, is a multistate operator (MSO) with dispensaries, called Liberty, with licenses and vertical integration in many states, including Michigan. Kyle explained that with each state’s different set of rules, the cannabis space was unlike—and more challenging than—most industries.
On the phone, Kyle sounded pretty hip. He was excited about the Garcia Hand Picked brand and bragged about recently going to a Phish concert. He explained that Trixie, Jerry Garcia’s daughter, was the picker of award-winning strains that made the new brand. She did her hunting while being a celebrity judge at the Emerald Cup in California. Kyle also explained that people like himself and other professionals like lawyers, accountants, and financial officers are required in the new licensed cannabis space, all the while trying to maintain an image of social and historical relevance.
After the long-distance phone interview with the marketing man, I was provided a local contact at the Liberty dispensary in Madison Heights. I made arrangements with the store and came down to meet the staff and get samples of the Garcia Hand Picked products. The dispensary was very nice and the display of Jerry Garcia books and memorabilia was supercool. However, being vertically integrated, the dispo lack the variety of products many people like to see. Behind the store was the commercial grow facility that produces all the flower for the three Liberty stores in Michigan.
The staff was very culturally diverse and excited to be working in cannabis. They showed off their products and gave me a pack of Garcia Hand Picked Florida Kush prerolls, which was in a beautiful package containing five joints, a glass smoking tip, and a poem by Jerry. They also gave me some Garcia Hand Picked gummies. The joints were pretty good, but not as nice as the packaging, and the gummies were typical gummies. Overall, the brand is impressive, but there’s some room for it to become truly top shelf in Michigan, though Liberty really doesn’t have any tiers of products. All of Liberty’s cannabis products are made in-house. The cannabis market is evolving, and big names are being licensed by investors. I am glad to see that the Garcia family is getting its tributes, as the legacy has its place in history.
View this article on our website.
