Mammoth Labs Enters the Nevada Market

By: Jennifer Walker

Photos: Katie Peede

An Interview with COO, Jezus the Jeweler

Mammoth Labs brand was first introduced in the great state of Washington. The brand quickly became famous there due to its high-quality extracts and top-notch service. Mammoth’s local brand representatives are located in central Washington, where the largest and most complete remains of a Wooly Mammoth were discovered not too long ago (currently, the remains are in England). After some collaborative thought, the team decided to name their brand “Mammoth Labs” with the desire to incorporate the local culture of the brand’s birthplace. Integrating the mammoth and the cannabis oil together (after a few test drawings) their logo was finalized with the help of a great graffiti artist. Connoisseurs around the world soon began to notice the logo and ordered t-shirts and other merchandise from MammothLabs.com.
Once established in Washington, Mammoth started looking into other states. Nevada was always on their radar and they would have started earlier, but Covid put everything back a bit. Las Vegas being “the capital of entertainment”, Mammoth wanted to introduce their brand and quality products to everyone. In addition to being in California for a while on a small production basis, Mammoth is currently in the process of a large expansion and expects to be throughout the state soon. Other Mammoth facilities are currently being built in Arizona and Oregon and near-term goals are an East Coast expansion (primarily New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts). Eventually, Mammoth will also be everywhere else within the U.S.

JENNIFER WALKER: Can you give us some general information about your background and how you got into cannabis…
JEZUS THE JEWELER: I’ve been a marijuana enthusiast since I was a teenager. When I was 14-years-old, I started smoking weed and I’ve been hooked on the feeling of how great it makes me feel…the creativity that it inspires. I have such a passion for it, I truly love it. When I lived in Ohio, my friends and I were involved with the sale of cannabis. We’d get a hold of flower from California and we were always looking for the best quality stuff. Around 7 years ago, I moved out to Nevada with my (now) wife and immediately got into the cannabis industry. I started growing in my backyard and I began working for The Grove dispensary (Pahrump, NV). My friends and I used to do backyard blasting for concentrates in 2011-12. We were always trying to figure out how to make this or that, how to get higher, how to get better hash, how to get better flavors- and that’s really what led me to doing extracts and concentrates, by doing backyard blasting all the way back in Cleveland, OH! When I moved to Nevada, the owner of Even Cannabis who went to highschool with me reached out. She basically said, “Hey, I know what you used to do in Ohio and we’ve got a lab that we’re setting up here. Why don’t you come and show us what you can do?” I was immediately like, alright, let’s do it! Ever since then, it was a hit and I’ve been making awesome concentrates and good medicine ever since.

JW: That’s cool! Did you also work for Las Vegas Cannabis?
JJ: I did. I worked for Even for a while, then I worked at a CBD processing facility and then I was brought over to Las Vegas Cannabis and worked there for 2 years. In 2019 I came out with my THCa-infused preroll and that’s what we won the High Times Cannabis Cup with.

JW: That’s fantastic! So essentially, cannabis was what brought you to Nevada?
JJ: The real reason that I came out to Nevada was my wife (then, my girlfriend) her father had retired from trucking in Pahrump, NV and she told me that she wanted to move to Nevada to be with her dad. So I’m like, “I’m comin’!” I saw the opportunities that were just starting out here with cannabis. So I’ve actually lived in Pahrump ever since I moved to Nevada.

JW: Let’s talk about Mammoth Labs. How did you get involved with them and how did that whole relationship begin?
JJ: Mammoth actually reached out to me via social media a few times- back when I was working with Las Vegas Cannabis. I decided to step away from Las Vegas Cannabis and put up a message on my Instagram letting people know that I was open to freelancing and looking for companies to work with. They reached back out to me and we connected over the phone which led to me going out to Washington to their lab and their grow. They are super committed to making quality cannabis, no CRC’s so they’re not bleaching it or using any odd chemicals- they’re just about making really high quality, good tasting products. That’s what I’m passionate about, as well. All I want to do is make good hash!

JW: As far as learning how to make concentrates, are you self-taught?
JJ: Yea, I’m self-taught. When I stepped into the legal market in Nevada, Kristin’s husband at Even knew a lot about extracting and I actually learned a lot about the commercial side of extracting from him.

JW: What types of products will Mammoth be offering in Nevada?
JJ: We are going to be doing 1 gram concentrates, all live resin, mainly badders, diamonds and sauces. We’re also going to do 1 gram live resin carts, 510 thread, and we’re going to do half gram live resin disposables. We’re also doing infused joints with a glass tip and they will be infused with the diamonds.

JW: Maybe flower in the future?
JJ: In the future, we are looking for space to grow right now or people who will grow for us. We want to bring our own genetics down from Washington. In Vegas especially, a lot of people grow the same stuff and they mimic each other. We really want to bring some rare genetics down here that people don’t see everyday and are more excited to try. We are launching this first week of January 2022. Our launch party is at Mike Tyson’s old house and then we’re hitting the dispensaries!

JW: That’s so exciting, people love new things! Are you also handling sales?
JJ: I am a little bit but we also have someone helping us out with sales, as well.

JW: That’s great. In your experience, what products do you think that consumers generally prefer? What do you think people are really looking for out there?
JJ: I think that people are looking for stuff that is potent and ready to go- easy to smoke. I do think that sometimes concentrates are more of a niche because you need a rig or something in order to smoke them, but I know from experience that the things that sell the most and do the best are products that are ready to go. Live resin carts with the right ratios, especially in Nevada, are really hard to find right now. The infused prerolls give people an opportunity to smoke a concentrate when otherwise, if they aren’t prepared with their own rig, they can’t smoke them. But the infused preroll gives them that opportunity since it’s ready to go and super potent- this is also a huge selling point for Nevada tourists (Las Vegas and Reno, especially) and even locals…they see these prerolls and they’re like, “Wow…I wanna try that!”

JW: That’s such a good point because Nevada is such a unique market because you do have to consider the tourist ratio…
JJ: Exactly! I mean, someone flies out to Vegas, how are they going to take a dab?

JW: And truly, people who consume concentrates are going to prefer a live resin vape…
JJ: Agreed. They’re likely not going for the distillate and botanical terps.

JW: How are your quality standards different from what we normally see out there in the industry?
JJ: For all of our concentrates, we’re only going to be doing fresh frozen nug run stuff, we’re not going to be releasing trim run. I personally am hand selecting and procuring all of the flower that we buy. I get to decide what’s good enough and what isn’t. I would never release anything that I wouldn’t smoke myself- I’m a huge connoisseur and all I want to release is good, quality products.

JW: If someone asked you what they should look for when they’re buying a concentrate, what would you tell them?
JJ: I’d say look at the terpene content- that’s the main thing. Really get to know how the terpenes affect you and what type of high you’re looking for. That’s honestly how you’re going to figure out how the concentrates are going to work for you is the terpene profile.

JW: When you guys do concentrates, do the terpenes burn off?
JJ: No, not at all. I have rules in my lab, so when we’re blasting, we go fast and cold so we don’t pull any colors and then post-processing, we go low and slow so we don’t burn terpenes. We’re always preserving flavor and color. When I have it in my possession in the lab, it’s all about preserving color.

JW: That’s cool, so no need to reintroduce things…
JJ: Exactly- fast and cold when we’re extracting and low and slow post-processing. That’s the best way.

JW: Will you do shatter at some point? Will you press rosin?
JJ: We plan on doing solventless, we’re going to bring out rosin badder. We don’t plan on doing shatter, I just want to focus on high-quality concentrates like badders, diamonds and sauce.

JW: Are there any situations where you urge someone to stay away from concentrates? An example would be someone who only has experience with flower and suddenly wants to graduate to concentrates…what would you say?
JJ: I’d say, “yes you should try concentrates!” Concentrates are cleaner than smoking flower. When you’re smoking flower, you’re smoking all of that plant material, all of that carbon. That is actually an irritant on your lungs. Concentrates, specifically BHO, we can run it so cold that no fats (lipids)… they’re not pulled in the extraction. So you’re smoking literally just the resins of the plant- the flavors, the terpenoids, the THC, the cannabinoids…and that’s all that you’re smoking. You’re not getting rid of the irritants, so it’s super clean. I feel like people actually save money by smoking concentrates because you smoke way less than traditional flower.

JW: That’s great! I was just thinking that concentrates can be so strong, especially for someone who isn’t experienced and mainly consumes flower. But they are actually very clean…
JJ: Yea because you’re not smoking any of that filler that you don’t need. BHO is actually a cleaner product than solventless- we pull more flavors and terpenes when we do the BHO extractions, and it’s always going to be more resinous, too. Butane is an element, it can’t break down into anything else. Think about any inhaler or nasal spray- they all have butane in them. So it’s not something that you should be worried about.

JW: This is so fascinating…science lessons with Jezus the Jeweler!

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