Alien Mints is a hybrid from Alien Labs, the California brand Ted Lidie built, selected from Seed Junky Genetics' Animal Mints BX1. SF Station's 2020 review traced the cut to that backcross and found dense, boulder-sized buds turned greyish-green by trichomes, with a touch of purple.
It arrived near the peak of the brand's run. High Times wrote in 2023 that by the time Milky Way and Alien Mints hit the scene, Alien Labs drops were selling out on release.
Ted Lidie and the outsider brand
Lidie was born in Oregon and spent most of his life in Redding, California, where his father grew cannabis before Ted was born. He moved to San Francisco at 21 and started his first indoor grow in 2007. He later managed All About Wellness, a Sacramento dispensary.
He built Alien Labs as a bat signal for other outsiders, High Times reported. The name came from feeling so far from what was popular that they might as well have been aliens. The grow started at 6 lights and scaled to 2,000.
In 2018, Alien Labs was sold to Connected Cannabis Co. in a cash deal, with Lidie keeping the merchandising rights. Weedmaps lists the brand in California and Arizona today, and the skate-rooted merch line now reaches more than 1,000 shops.
Running other breeders' genetics harder
Alien Labs made its early name on cuts that were already in circulation. It put out a version of Wedding Cake, a Seed Junky strain that had been around for a while, and got it to shine in a way others had not. Versions of Gelato #33 and Sunset Sherbet followed.
Dosidos was the same story. Dozens of cultivators held the plant, but High Times wrote that none were getting the results the Aliens were. Alien Mints came out of that habit of taking a known line and pushing one selection further.
An Animal Mints backcross from Seed Junky
SeedFinder credits Alien Mints to Alien Labs working with Seed Junky Genetics, the breeding outfit JBeezy started in 2014. The starting material was Animal Mints BX1. A first backcross crosses offspring back toward a parent, which concentrates that parent's traits in the next generation.
Leafly lists Animal Mints itself as Animal Cookies crossed with SinMint Cookies. The Weedmaps listing for the Alien Labs cartridge writes the pedigree as Animal Mints × Animal Mints, and Leafly also traces Alien Mints straight back to Animal Mints.
Coterie Brands, which grows its own Alien Mintz flower, credits the original pheno hunt to Seed Junky and Alien Labs together. Coterie hand-trims its batches, then dries and cures them for 21 days before jarring.
Dense, frosted flower and a fast onset
SeedFinder describes a stocky plant with dense, pine-shaped green flowers, a silver sheen of trichomes, orange hairs and light purple hues. Coterie's jars show oversized buds with dark green and purple undertones. SeedFinder also records the cut as originally clone-only.
Lab numbers run high. SeedFinder puts typical tests around 27–30% THC, and Coterie lists a 26–32% range. The leading terpenes include caryophyllene, myrcene and limonene, with linalool and pinene in smaller amounts.
SF Station tasted mint with a hint of gas on the dry pull, turning sweet and doughy once lit. The effect hit as soon as the joint was lit, bringing euphoria, a scattered focus and a lasting grin. Leafly reviewers most often call it relaxed and talkative, with a creeping build.
From flower jars to live resin
Alien Labs carries Alien Mints past flower. Weedmaps lists a 1-gram Alien Labs live resin 510 cartridge that keeps the Animal Mints × Animal Mints pedigree and the hybrid label. The cart listing describes a euphoric lift that settles into deep relaxation.
That run from jar to cartridge fits the brand's larger pattern. Lidie's team takes a single selection, grows it out under its own name and carries it across formats, from indoor flower to vape hardware.