Billows of Haze gets creative with hybrids, names

Three years ago, Alyse Honnold faced a choice: go to school for a master’s degree in physical therapy or expand her medical cannabis growing operation into the adult-use/recreational market. “It was either work hard for three years and then work harder when I got out, or work my ass off now and have something to show for it,” she said. Ultimately she picked option 2. She and a partner purchased a cannabis business and renamed it Billows of Haze, a “barely Tier 2” producer in northeast Spokane. Though the size and scale of the indoor operation is small, she was right about the hard work part. “Growing and managing the production side has been the easy part since I was already growing medically, but I underestimated the amount of time traceability would consume,” she said. “It probably takes nearly half as much time as all the growing.” Today, the former competitive MMA fighter is also the company’s main sales representative who visits shops around the state, seeking interest in carrying the company’s flower and pre-rolls. “I do 90 percent of the sales myself,” Honnold said. “One thing we’ve learned that decent sales people are hard to find. But I also still love the growing.” She especially enjoys planting seeds and seeing what comes up and genetically crossing different strains to discover if the resulting hybrid looks good and provides a good experience. “I like to experiment,” she said. “We’re always coming out with new ones.” Billows of Haze also provides plants to Seattle Pure Extracts, which are made into oil for cartridges. While some growers focus on cultivating one or two new strains at a time, Honnold said Billows of Haze plants more. “We have thousands of seeds,” she said. “We usually come out with eight strains at a time, and we have a ton of new ones we want to plant.” Popular strains this summer included Super Hash; Q-Tip, a cross between Querkle and Silver Tip, and Xotica. Silver Tip has been a constant seller. This fall, Billows of Haze will release several new strains resulting from crosses with Xotica, an exclusive strain, and Alien Berry Kush, Animal Pie, Skywalk OG, Durban Poison and Optimus Prime. Names are still in the works for most of them, but the Xotica and Durban Poison will be called Xotic Poison. Along with clever names and good terpene profiles, each package of pre-rolls offers another fun touch: a strike-anywhere match, handy for when you can’t find matches or your lighter. Honnold enjoys educating people in the shops about everything that makes its products special, like flavor and aromas. She also enjoys sharing the positive role of cannabis, starting with her own experiences. “I grew up being taught that all of this was terrible, that pot was evil,” she said. But at age 21, her partner showed her that cannabis could help people with medical needs, including his mom. Honnold tried it herself and discovered that it improved her sleep and relieved chronic pain from an autoimmune health condition. Her mom is now supportive, and her grandfather, who initially wasn’t excited that she was working with marijuana, now provides excellent business advice. Next year Billows of Haze hopes to move to a larger location just north of Spokane, and Honnold would love to start creating topicals. “I want to share this product with the world and tell my story – I was ‘that’ person who thought it was all evil, and now I really want to help people understand that cannabis isn’t as evil as they’ve been led to believe,” she said.