Sunset Sherbet, also spelled Sunset Sherbet, is a Girl Scout Cookies × Pink Panties hybrid bred by Mr. Sherbinski in San Francisco. It started as an accident in 2012, when a Pink Panties male pollinated his Cookies crop.
Its biggest legacy came two years later. Crossed back to Cookies, Sunset Sherbet became a parent of Gelato, the line behind Sherbinskis and dozens of later California cultivars.
A Pink Panties seed in grandma's garage
Sherbinski told Humboldt Seeds in 2019 that one of his grows sat in his grandmother's garage, with about 12 lights over a 20 × 20 space. He had Girl Scout Cookies flowering there and brought in a Pink Panties seed. By the time he came back, the young male had pollinated the room.
The flower was full of seeds. He had thousands, but he dug into the garbage bag holding his stems and scraped out a handful. Those were the seeds that made Sunset Sherbet.
Pink Panties had its own story. Sherbinski told High Times in 2018 that it came from Burmese pollen that Jigga had, put onto a Larry OG "Ish Cut" that Sherbinski kept.
Named for a Thrifty ice cream flavor
The name comes from Thrifty, the long-running California ice cream counter, and its Rainbow Sherbet flavor of orange, raspberry and lemon. Sherbinski told Humboldt Seeds the Sunset prefix marks where the crew came from, the Sunset District of San Francisco.
Leafly's 2021 Cookies-and-Cakes family history quotes him tasting berry, citrus, lemon, orange and lime when he first smoked it. The strain took off in the Bay Area, where the crew promoted it and rappers started working it into verses.
The parent of Gelato
In 2014, Sherbinski feminized pollen with colloidal silver and crossed Sunset Sherbet with Girl Scout Cookies, according to Leafly. Sherbinskis lists the Gelato side as Thin Mint Cookies. A phenotype hunt turned up numbered keepers, among them Gelato #33 and Gelato #41.
Rather than hoarding Gelato #33, Sherbinski passed cuttings around widely, and the plant spread across the country. Sherbinskis still sells #41 as Bacio Gelato, next to Mochi, Acai Berry and Gello Gelato.
Other growers picked up the parent as well. High Times wrote in 2023 that Alien Labs released its own versions of Gelato #33 and Sunset Sherbet, each showing a new expression of the plant.
How Sunset Sherbet grows and hits
Leafly lists Sherbet as an indica-dominant hybrid that flowers in 7–9 weeks, or 63–72 days. The buds come in oblong and fluffy, with heavy trichome coverage and dark amber hairs over light and dark green foliage.
Leafly lists average THC near 18%, with some products around 22%, plus about 1% CBG. Caryophyllene leads the terpenes, followed by limonene and myrcene. Reviewers most often report feeling relaxed, tingly, happy and creative.
Sherbinskis today
Sherbinskis is now a California brand built around the Gelato family. Sherbinskis sells indoor flower in its signature orange glass jars, along with live rosin joints, live resin 510 cartridges and the dual-chamber Quattro vape.
The company still presents its Gelato line as descending from Sunset Sherbet, and its lineup keeps the numbered cuts that came out of that 2014 hunt.