Gassiest of 2023 Awards - Best Vape Pen/Cartridge Brand

By Gas & Middies

Before I started this website, I smoked almost exclusively vape pens/cartridges. That’s since shifted to more flower & rosin, but the convenience of cartridges can’t be beat!

Vape pens/cartridges come in many varieties, mainly: distillate, live resin, & live rosin.

You’ll notice this list mostly focuses on live resin cartridges. This is because I believe, this is the intersection of quality and value for customers.

Distillate carts typically have added artificial terpenes and blah highs, but are the cheapest. While live rosin carts typically cost the most, for what I consider, a marginal increase in taste compared to live resin.

Live resin carts hit the sweet spot in the middle. Like the warm porridge in Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

No artificial terps. Great flavors. Reasonable cost.

I’ll get off my soapbox.

Alright, on to the winners.

Drumroll please 🥁

Best Vape Pen/Cartridge Brand

Honorable Mention: Humblebee

You may know Humblebee for having the live resin market on lock in Michigan.

But recently, they’ve entered the cartridge scene and brought that same quality into a new form.

They brought their Alien Cough as a freebie in the Zalympix. As well as entering their Wedding Crasher in the High Times Cannabis Cup in 2023.

Their hardware is solid and their live resin is tasty.

I’d only knock them for having slightly less flavor than the other brands on this list.

But for being new to the cart scene, these guys will be contenders for years to come.

3rd Place: Five Star Extracts

I was recently introduced to Five Star Extracts carts during the High Times Canabis Cup in 2023.

Their Devil Driver & Black Cherry Trop entries blew me away with their flavor.

They call their product “nug run sugar sauce”:

Experience the same amazing dabs from Five Star Extracts now available in a cart form. Made with the same process as our dabs, our NEW Five Star Extracts Carts will use only premium buds and won’t have any added distillate or artificial terpenes. The NEW Five Star Extracts - Nug Run Sugar Sauce Carts are only available in .5 grams, and are made in small batches to preserve the terpenes and flavonoids that are natural to our extraction process just like our current concentrates.

As always with all of our concentrates and vape carts, Five Star Extracts uses no Color Remediation or CRC techniques so you get to experience the true terpenes and flavors the cannabis plant naturally produced.

The hardware also appears to be legit. I didn’t have any clogging issues with any of their cartridges.

Five Star Extracts cartridges are premium products that you can get at reasonable prices. This is typically a win-win for the consumer.

If anything, their carts are a little difficult to find in my area.

I’ll be on the lookout for more strains to try from Five Star Extracts in the upcoming year.

2nd Place: Element

Element were the guys to beat in terms of cartridges in the Michigan scene.

They’ve always had a great reputation for providing high quality cartridges with high terpene percentages.

Recently they stumbled a bit with the release of their 1 gram cartridges.

1 gram cartridges are tricky… they open up your product to having clogging issues at around the halfway point. This is typically why live resin & live rosin brands stick to 0.5 gram cartridges.

On that note, I’ve had no issues with the 0.5 gram carts.

Element seems to collaborate with everyone! And Pro Gro seems to be a frequent collaborator.

Their Lunar Lemon was one of the standouts from the High Times Cannabis Cup enteries for 2023.

One thing about Element, is that they bring terps!

Sometimes almost too many terps… their Papaya Punch almost had 11% terpenes, which is unheard of.

The flavor was great, but I’ve found too many terps can cause sneezing and harshness when hitting.

It’s always all about the balance!

Either way, Element are heavyweights in the cartridge game and always someone to keep an eye on.

1st Place: Lightsky Farms

Lightsky Farms might be the oldest heads in the cartridge game!

They’ve been winning cups longer than most other brands have been in business.

I’ve been buying Lightsky Farms cartridges since they were medical and they’ve always been stellar.

Let’s start with their Lilac Diesel. The flavor on that might be the most intense I’ve ever had in a cartridge. Your face is just slapped with terps.

After taking one hit, I went back to the store to buy multiple others.

Lightsky Farms carts don’t taste ariticial and their hardware is great.

While they did have a time with some hardward issues causing their carts to not hit, this didn’t seem to be a problem this year.

In fact, Lightsky Farms is known to throw in a free battery that is almost always compatible with their cartridges.

Their flavors are true to strain and taste just like concetrated flower, as they should.

Lightsky Farms is my pick for vape pens/cartridges in 2023 and are the brand to beat moving forward!

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