On their official Facebook page, Blue Mountain Growers describes their business as: “Growing optimized genetics for the adult-use cannabis industry and honeybees.” Speak to the two partners in the recently state-approved and licensed microbusiness and you’ll get a sense that one of the things they’re all about is history, and that history’s appeal to connoisseurs. 

For Spencer Sutton, head grower and partner, history is about genetics. Sutton also runs Catskill Mountain Kush, a legacy brand through which he’s been collecting genetics since the ‘80s. Sutton is more than an enthusiast, he’s an expert. And his expertise extends to understanding how some cannabis varieties brought here from around the world can survive and thrive in Saugerties. 

“There are Afghani varieties that were growing here in the ‘50s and ‘60s,” Sutton said. “And soldiers coming home from Vietnam brought stuff here that do really well in the Hudson Valley. There are just some varieties that due to climate, or breeding, or New York weather, do really well. Our Catskill Mountains kind of mimic the Hindu (Kush) Mountains.”

That’s certainly been the case on the Blue Mountain Growers property, which has been in chief operating officer and partner Gary Myer’s family for well over a century. Over the decades, the land has been used to grow many different things, and most recently served as a Christmas tree farm run by Myer’s father. 

“It’s a small world,” Myer said, noting that while he and Sutton officially connected on social media, their familial paths have crossed before. 

“He always used to bring his family here to get Christmas trees,” Myer said. “And my mother used to be a school bus driver, and she drove him to school … Six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon.”

Though Blue Mountain Growers is a new business, both Myer and Sutton have worked side-by-side on the property for three or four years, Myer growing vegetables and Sutton working on his legacy cannabis cultivation. 

Sutton has been keeping many older varieties alive through methods like cloning, and even — perhaps especially — because of marijuana becoming legal in New York, Catskill Mountain Kush stands out in a crowd. 

“I think that most of the general public has been misinformed about cannabis,” he said. “Basically, high THC percentages mean nothing; it’s all about the cannabinoids and terpenes. And a lot of that stuff has been bred out of it for whatever reason, but that’s kind of the medicine. It’s why I’ve gotten into collecting the old school streams now.”

The user experience can be markedly different. 

“A lot of the stuff that’s on the market right now has little to no effect at all, no medicinal value at all,” Sutton said. “It’s been bred for the commercial market. You don’t get the euphoric, uplifting effects in the cannabis plants generally available to the public.”

Some of that quality comes from the environment, but it’s helped along at Blue Mountain Growers by avoiding the use of chemicals, and using living soil and high-end supplements. 

At the moment, Blue Mountain Growers and Catskill Mountain Kush are in the process of getting the fruits of their collective labor into the marketplace. 

“We are right now just getting our flower tested by the lab and it’s coming back pretty good,” Sutton said.“We’re hoping that we got one more test and then we’re gonna be preparing to bring this flower to market.”

They’ve already connected with Royale Flower, a popular cannabis dispensary in Albany. A brick-and-mortar Blue Mountain Growers/Catskill Mountain Kush-run shop is not in their future plans, at least not in Saugerties, which in 2021 opted out of allowing retail cannabis dispensaries and consumption sites to operate within the municipality. 

Still, the future looks bright. At present, including Myer and Sutton, there are four employees working at Blue Mountain Growers. That could change over time. 

“We’re both hard workers,” Myer said. “We’re not afraid of physical labor at the least and you know we’ve done it so far on a skeleton crew.”

That hard work is resulting in a product that will be geared toward consumers who are knowledgeable about cannabis. 

“People who expect a certain quality of product and are willing to pay for it, and have disposable income to pay for it,” Myer said. “That’s really where this is all tailored. I’ve shared with friends from college and such, and they’re like, this is like the difference between sneaking out behind the parking lot or something and having a couple puffs, or sitting down with your favorite beverage and relaxing with friends around the campfire or some experience. It’s not just pop open a couple beers behind the school.”

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