Brandon Rolpo | How we Roll
Brandon Rolpo | My neighbor and the creative mind behind Casa Pedro Panaderia Age: 28 Location: Valladolid, Mexico
I’m sitting down at Casa Pedro with my good friend Brandon here in Valladolid, Mexico. Valladolid is a small city in Yucatan where I spend a lot of my time. Casa Pedro just opened this year, and my partner and I spend many mornings drinking dirty chais with Brandon.
What do you do for work?
I’m an artist, entrepreneur, and a baker. I was born in Yucatan, but my family lives in Puebla near Mexico City. I moved back to Yucatan, to Valladolid to give birth to my project Casa Pedro Panaderia. It started as a bakery but now it’s more like a restaurant / cafe. I really wanted to create a place where you can feel very comfortable when you’re high. A good environment, with good music, and good food.
And for fun?
I create art. I love to write, and journal. I also love baking and I love to travel. I do little road trips to different places around Yucatan. I like to explore through art, and explore through food.
Currently listening to:
For the moment I’m listening more to house music, and Bad Bunny’s new album. I don’t really listen to a lot of reggaeton, but it’s a really alternative album with different rhythms. When I’m high I love R&B, like SZA, and Summer Walker. I like the vibe of R&B when it’s really flowy and they have beautiful voices and it’s very light. Like poetry and a little bit, you know naughty.
What is your favorite way to consume cannabis?
I like to smoke joints. It’s easier for me to control it a little bit better than if I eat it, it’s different. I’m a social smoker so I can be working and also be high and functional. I don’t really smoke so much but I do it often. So if I roll a joint just for myself, I guess that would last about 48 hours.
So you roll your own?
Yes. I don’t know if people will relate to this, but sometimes when I’m thinking about rolling a joint, my hands start to sweat, and it gets so hard for me to roll with my hand so sweaty. So it’s a whole ritual, just to put everything together. I put everything on the edge of the paper (usually 11/4 inch) with a filter and I just roll it, roll it, roll it, and then I just use a lot of saliva. When it’s too humid, I dry it with the lighter. I like to tap the top of the joint down with a pencil or paintbrush. So I can have a perfect top, and then twist it. I think that’s very satisfying.
Do you have a favorite strain?
Right now, I love Cookies Haze. I’m more into sativa hybrids. I don’t love indicas, except in certain moments where we’re just like chilling. I’m very active and I think a hybrid or a sativa, can really bring that creativity out of my body and into my mind.
Can you tell me a bit about the current laws here in Mexico regarding cannabis?
The government in Mexico is starting to legalize a little bit more around cannabis. For example, you’re able to have five grams of weed on you for personal consumption and I think that’s a step forward. Who knows, probably by the end of this term the president will legalize weed and we will have dispensaries on the way. In Mexico, drinking alcohol with friends is very common and right now I think that is shifting more to cannabis and I think that’s pretty cool.
Do you have any personal cannabis rituals?
So I love that we live in hot weather. After work, I just go to my room, turn on the AC, turn on candles, maybe a little bit of incense or Palo Santo. I roll my joint and then I go out with my dog, Porfirio. I see the sky, I connect with nature. Cannabis really helps me to chill the fuck out my brain because I’m a workaholic. Hi, I’m Brandon, and I’m a workaholic. It really helps me to focus my mind on what really matters. In that moment, I’m just by myself appreciating life, there’s nothing better than having a joint in my hand, just breathing, feeling the smoke, letting it out and just feeling how the THC is hitting my body, hitting my head. I find it very soothing for my soul.
Do you have a favorite “codeword” for being stoned?
I guess I say, I’m stoned. Oh my God, I’m so faded. In Spanish you can say pacheco. In the center of Mexico, it’s a fun way to call yourself high.
Can you use it in a sentence?
Sure. La noche anterior me puse super pacheco con mi hermano.
Best / strangest stoned food combo?
I love a mix of sweet and salty. I would do a bowl with fruit, maybe Greek yogurt and like different types of grains, a lot of peanut butter or almond butter, that’s my go to place. I love textures. I think the worst was scrambled eggs with mushrooms, the mushrooms were not so well fried and they got very sticky and the eggs got really liquidy and it was very nasty.
Favorite cottonmouth remedy?
First, I drink water because if my body wants to hydrate, I want to listen to that first and then after that, then I get something else like a smoothie, or I would do a dirty chai.
Favorite movie when stoned?
I like classic animated movies, like One Hundred and One Dalmatians, The Little Mermaid, Alice in Wonderland. It’s not a movie, but lately I’ve been watching Midnight Gospel. It’s very trippy, and when I’m stoned, it’s even better. It’s animated with something totally random going on but then the conversation is still happening. You feel like you’re getting this slice of this moment.
Favorite smoking accessory?
I have a little Bulldog grinder, it’s my favorite. I stole it one time when I was in high school from a party. It’s been 10 years and I still have it. I think that grinder would be my best friend. It’s always there.
Any funny stories buying weed?
Yes, first of all, like when you buy it for the first time you feel like you’re going to jail. Like it feels so sketchy. One time I contacted this guy. He said he would meet me at the mall. We were in the parking lot and I was so freaked out because I never knew who this person was. I was just expecting to see this guy with a white T-shirt and guess what, there were like five or six other people with white t-shirts who appeared and I was so anxious.
Tell me your favorite stoned memory.
I really started smoking more often when I moved to Alaska for the summer. I had cousins there and we would go on little road trips and go into the forest for a hike and just smoke and walk, see the nature and appreciate everything. Alaskan weed is top shit, for me, it’s one of my favorite weeds. But anyways, like Alaskan summers stoned with this beautiful colorful weed and just being in the woods enjoying life.
What’s the strongest high you’ve ever experienced?
It was also in Alaska, we were hotboxing in a car and we were passing the blunt. It was a fat ass blunt and in Mexico, I’m not used to smoking that much. By the second blunt, I was so fucking high and I started to feel dizzy and I just wanted to get out of the car. And I think that is not the point of this medicine and I want to use that word because we need to remember that. This is something that will help your body. I think we have to honor this cannabis in that way, and not just smoke it just because you want to smoke, you know what I mean? But that’s me just like giving a meaning and a sense to the things that I do.
Dead or Alive, your ultimate smoke sesh guest list?
That would be my girl in front of me, for sure. Then I would say Snoop Dogg, and I would like to smoke with Justin Beiber. I would smoke with SZA and Bretman Rock. He’s my favorite beauty influencer.
Are you craving anything right now?
Yes, a joint, and I’m craving pizza right now. Pizza is the best thing you could ever have because it has everything. I’m not saying this just because I make it, but it’s really, really good. My mozzarella cheese is from a ranch here in Yucatan so it’s very natural. I love to put veggies on top with the perfect crust, very thin but also very crunchy and perfect. Something with great texture, good flavor and good ingredients.
Your pizza is the bomb… thebomb.com, it’s my favorite in town.
Okay. We’re going back to like 2000 like right here, crazy.