The Skunk Strain Family: Exodus Cheese, Blue Cheese, Super Skunk, and Why Skunk #1 Changed Everything

Two strains defined the foundation of modern cannabis genetics more than any others. The first is OG Kush — the California indica-hybrid whose Caryophyllene-forward, fuel-and-earth character seeded the Chemdawg, Cookies, and Gelato family trees. The second is Skunk #1, a California three-way hybrid from the same decade whose influence moved in a completely different direction: into the UK and Netherlands, where it became the foundation of a genetic revolution that produced Blue Cheese, Super Skunk, Shiva Skunk, and the Skunk parent in Jack Herer and Super Silver Haze.

Skunk #1 matters to Vermont dispensary shoppers for a practical reason that goes beyond genetics history: its family still produces some of the most immediately recognizable aromas on any menu. Blue Cheese is impossible to mistake. A genuine Skunk #1 phenotype — rare today, but still cultivated — smells like nothing else. The reason is chemistry that standard lab panels don't capture, which is why understanding the Skunk family requires looking beyond the COA terpene numbers to what the nose actually detects.

This guide traces the Skunk genetic tree, explains the chemistry behind its distinctive aroma, and identifies the Skunk-family strains most likely to appear at Vermont dispensaries. For individual strain profiles, follow the spotlight links throughout.

Origins: Sacred Seeds, California, late 1970s

Skunk #1 was developed by a California breeder known as Sam the Skunkman — David Watson — at a collective called Sacred Seeds operating in the Santa Cruz area in the late 1970s. The goal was to combine equatorial sativa genetics with a fast-flowering, resin-heavy indica, producing a stable hybrid that could be grown commercially. The parent genetics were a three-way cross: Colombian sativa (Colombian Gold landrace, the backbone of the strain's uplifting and mood-elevating character), Mexican sativa (contributing structure and additional resin expression), and Afghani indica (from the Hindu Kush region, providing the fast flowering time, dense bud structure, and the physical body ease that made the hybrid commercially viable).

What made the result remarkable was stability. Cannabis breeders before Skunk #1 had created hybrid crosses, but most were inconsistent — different seeds from the same pack grew into dramatically different plants. Sam the Skunkman's selection process produced a strain that expressed its characteristic traits reliably across generations. Every plant smelled like skunk. Every plant flowered in 8–9 weeks. The uniformity was unprecedented and immediately recognized as useful for commercial cultivation.

Around 1984, Sam the Skunkman moved to the Netherlands and distributed Skunk #1 seeds to Dutch breeders, most significantly to Sensi Seeds and Nevil Schoenmakers. Within a decade, Skunk #1 genetics had become the reference point for commercial cannabis breeding in Amsterdam — the dependable, fast-flowering hybrid that breeders crossed with their other lines to introduce stability and balanced hybrid character. It won the inaugural High Times Cannabis Cup in 1988 under the name "Cultivator's Choice," the first international recognition of the strain's quality and the beginning of its global reputation.

The aroma mystery: why a COA can't explain Skunk

The most practically important fact about Skunk #1 for Vermont dispensary shoppers is this: the characteristic skunky aroma that defines genuine Skunk-phenotype cannabis is not caused by the terpenes that appear on a standard Certificate of Analysis.

Standard COA terpene panels measure monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes — compounds like Myrcene, Caryophyllene, Terpinolene, Limonene, Linalool. These are real contributors to aroma. But Skunk #1's distinctive funk comes from a different chemical class: volatile sulfur compounds (VSCs), including prenylthiol and structurally related thiols. These sulfur-containing molecules have extremely low odor detection thresholds — the human nose detects them at parts-per-billion concentrations — but they are typically absent from commercial lab panels because they require different analytical methods than standard terpene analysis.

The same chemical family is responsible for the smell of actual skunks' defensive spray (at dramatically higher concentrations), rotten eggs, and garlic. In cannabis, at the trace concentrations present in Skunk-lineage genetics, the effect is more complex — a funky, almost savory depth beneath the sweet or citrus notes rather than a harsh chemical smell. The Myrcene-dominant terpene profile of most Skunk strains (Myrcene leading, with Alpha-Pinene, Limonene, and Caryophyllene in support) provides the sweet, herbal foundation; the VSCs add the unmistakable edge that the numbers alone don't explain.

Practically: if you're scanning a Vermont dispensary's lab results looking for the "skunk signal," you won't find it in the terpene column. The only reliable indicator is the jar itself. A genuine Skunk-expression batch produces an immediate and unmistakable olfactory response. If the terpene panel shows ordinary Myrcene-dominant numbers but the nose says classic Skunk, trust the nose.

Branch 1: The Cheese lineage — UK Cheese and Blue Cheese

The Skunk family's most distinctive branch in the UK didn't start as a breeding program. In the early 1990s, a group called the Exodus collective in Luton, Bedfordshire (known in the UK underground as the first rave collective to openly advocate for cannabis legalization) was growing plants from a pack of Sensi Seeds Skunk #1. Most plants expressed the expected skunky-sweet character. One phenotype expressed something completely different.

This plant — which became UK Cheese, or Exodus Cheese — produced a sharp, pungent, distinctly fermented aroma: not the typical skunk character, but something closer to aged blue cheese or mature cheddar. The volatile compound profile had shifted in this individual phenotype, producing dairy-fermentation notes alongside the VSC backbone. The Exodus collective recognized it as unique and began distributing clones through the UK free-party and rave circuit, where the strain spread across the country through the 1990s entirely as a clone — no seeds, just cuttings, passed from grower to grower.

By 2000, UK Cheese had become the defining strain of British cannabis culture — a shared genetic reference point recognizable by aroma alone, present in virtually every UK growing scene. Big Buddha Seeds, a UK-based breeder, recognized the opportunity to make it seed-reproducible by crossing the Exodus Cheese clone with DJ Short's Blueberry — an indica hybrid with a strong fruit-terpene expression and high-Cannabis-Cup pedigree. The result was Blue Cheese: the cheese funk from the Exodus Cheese parent layered over a sweet wild-blueberry note from Blueberry, in a Myrcene-dominant, indica-dominant package that tests 17–20% THC at Vermont dispensaries. Big Buddha Seeds' seed-form Cheese was a mid-2000s High Times Cannabis Cup indica-category award-winner, and Blue Cheese earned recognition at the same-era Cup and IC 420 Growers Cup. Both remain in regular production and are the most reliable way to encounter the Skunk-cheese branch at a Vermont dispensary today.

Branch 2: Indica-Skunk crosses — Super Skunk and Shiva Skunk

While UK growers were passing the Exodus Cheese clone from grower to grower, Sensi Seeds in Amsterdam was using Skunk #1 genetics in a different direction: crossing it with Afghan and Northern Lights to produce deeper, faster-flowering indica hybrids that would push Skunk's balanced hybrid character toward the indica end of the spectrum.

Super Skunk (Skunk #1 × Afghan) was Sensi Seeds' first major Skunk hybrid. The Afghan indica parent — a heavy, resin-saturated landrace from the same family that produced the Kush strains — amplified Skunk #1's already-substantial resin production and pushed the flowering time shorter and the physical body-heaviness deeper. Super Skunk is broader, more sedating, and considerably more resin-dense than the Skunk #1 parent, with a similarly Myrcene-dominant terpene profile. It won the Indica category at the 1990 Cannabis Cup, establishing Sensi Seeds' dominance in the competitive breeding world of early Amsterdam.

Shiva Skunk (Skunk #1 × Northern Lights #5) took the Skunk genetics in a slightly different direction. Northern Lights — itself an Afghani × Thai hybrid refined by Sensi Seeds — adds a different kind of indica character than the raw Afghan parent: denser, more resinous, with the pine-earth terpene profile of NL rather than the earthy-herbal of Afghan. Shiva Skunk retains more of the hybrid balance of its Skunk #1 parent than Super Skunk does — it's potent and indica-leaning but not purely sedating. Its most important role, however, is as a breeding tool: Sensi Seeds used Shiva Skunk as the Skunk-family parent when developing Jack Herer.

Branch 3: Skunk in the Haze lineage — Jack Herer, Super Silver Haze, and beyond

The most influential role Skunk #1 played in cannabis genetics history wasn't in its own family but as a stabilizing co-parent in the Haze lineage. Original Haze — the pure sativa that Dutch breeders received from California in the early 1980s — was genetically exceptional but practically impossible to grow: 14–16 week flowering time, massive plants, extremely inconsistent phenotype expression. Sam the Skunkman had introduced Skunk #1 precisely because it solved the stability and flowering-time problems that pure sativas created. Sensi Seeds and Green House Seeds realized that crossing Haze with Skunk-family genetics could produce hybrids that preserved Haze's cerebral character while inheriting Skunk's manageable growth habit and flowering speed.

Jack Herer was the result of Sensi Seeds' first major Haze-Skunk hybrid project: a three-way cross of Northern Lights #5, Original Haze, and Skunk #1 (with some accounts citing the Shiva Skunk hybrid as the specific Skunk parent). Released in 1994 and named after the cannabis activist and author of The Emperor Wears No Clothes, Jack Herer delivered exactly what the breeding program aimed for: a Terpinolene-dominant, daytime-appropriate sativa with a manageable 8–10 week flowering time. The Skunk #1 contribution is most visible in Jack Herer's body ease — the grounded, relaxed floor that prevents the racy, anxiety-prone ceiling that pure Haze can produce. Jack Herer is the Haze family's most commercially successful strain in large part because of what Skunk #1 contributed.

Green House Seeds pushed the same Haze-Skunk synthesis further with Super Silver Haze (NL × Haze × Skunk), which won the High Times Cannabis Cup in three consecutive years — 1997, 1998, and 1999 — an achievement unmatched in Cup history. SSH selected for a more pronounced Haze character than Jack Herer, at the cost of the grounded floor Jack Herer provides. The result is a higher-ceiling, more intensely cerebral sativa whose Terpinolene-dominant profile delivers the fullest expression of Haze genetics possible in a commercially practical plant. See the Super Silver Haze spotlight for the full effect profile.

Lemon Skunk — a Dutch selection of Skunk phenotypes specifically bred for high citrus-terpene expression — then contributed to Super Lemon Haze (SSH × Lemon Skunk, Green House Seeds, Cannabis Cup 2008 and 2009) and, through a different cross, to Lemon Haze (Lemon Skunk × Silver Haze). Both are common on Vermont menus and represent the Skunk family's citrus branch within the broader Haze lineage.

Reading a Skunk-family strain at a Vermont dispensary

The Skunk family's terpene signature — Myrcene-dominant, with Alpha-Pinene and Limonene in secondary positions and Caryophyllene further behind — overlaps with other indica hybrids and doesn't reliably distinguish Skunk-lineage strains from, say, a Northern Lights or Blueberry batch. The practical identification tool is the nose.

Blue Cheese is the most immediately identifiable: the sharp cheese-plus-blueberry aroma is unlike anything else on a Vermont menu and should be recognizable within seconds of opening the container. A Super Skunk batch will smell earthier and more pungently herbal than most modern hybrids, with that subtle sulfur edge that registers as "old school" to experienced consumers. Jack Herer's Skunk heritage shows up as a warm, piney sweetness beneath the Haze-forward Terpinolene profile — the grounded, non-racy quality that distinguishes it from SSH or Amnesia Haze.

For COA reading: when you see a Myrcene-dominant profile with Alpha-Pinene and Limonene present and the budtender describes an aroma that's funky, earthy, or cheese-adjacent, you're likely looking at a Skunk-lineage strain. If the Terpinolene is leading and the aroma is pine-floral-citrus, you're in the Haze branch of the family. If Caryophyllene dominates and the aroma is fuel or earth, you're in the OG Kush/Chemdawg side. The Vermont Strain Match can help you identify the closest current-menu option based on your target effect profile.

Float On Dispensary and Upstate Elevator Supply Co. are Burlington's primary sources for rotating indica-hybrid and classic-genetics inventory. Blue Cheese appears most consistently; Jack Herer shows up seasonally. If you're looking for something in the Skunk family that isn't in stock, ask the budtender about the closest aroma equivalent — the sulfur-compound nose is the most reliable guide to what's in the same genetic neighborhood.

See also: Blue Cheese spotlight — Exodus Cheese × Blueberry, the Skunk family's most recognizable aroma on Vermont menus; Jack Herer spotlight — NL#5 × Haze × Skunk #1, the balanced Sensi Seeds sativa that brought Skunk genetics into the Haze family; Super Silver Haze spotlight — NL × Haze × Skunk, the three-time Cannabis Cup winner; Super Lemon Haze spotlight — SSH × Lemon Skunk, the citrus branch of the Skunk-Haze line; Lemon Haze spotlight — Lemon Skunk × Silver Haze, Myrcene-dominant citrus sativa; AK-47 spotlight — Colombian × Mexican × Thai × Afghani, a parallel four-landrace hybrid from the same era; Haze strain family guide — the full Haze genetic tree including Skunk's role as co-parent; Kush strain family guide — the Afghani landrace roots that Skunk #1 also drew from; Chemdawg strain family guide — the other foundational California hybrid family; Vermont Strain Match for a personalized recommendation; Float On Dispensary and Upstate Elevator Supply Co. — Burlington dispensaries for Skunk-family strains; full Vermont dispensary directory.