Highlife Cup (Netherlands)
A Dutch cannabis competition with roots in a magazine, a long run as one of Europe's oldest cups, and a present-day status that the sources leave open.
- 866results on record
- 2002–2026years in our data
- 25editions
- 693matched to strains
- Bredalatest location
01Beginnings
The Highlife Cup, sometimes called the Highlife Cannabis Cup, is a Dutch cannabis competition. Leafly dates it to 1993 and says the Dutch-language magazine Highlife started it1. A Leafly piece by a veteran Dutch cannabis journalist goes further and calls it the oldest competition of its kind in the Netherlands2. SeedFinder agrees on the broad picture: it puts the cup in the Netherlands and counts it among the oldest cannabis cups in Europe3.
The sources do not tell a founding story. They do not say why the magazine launched the contest, or who other than the magazine helped organise it1. We have left that gap open rather than fill it with guesswork.
02The story so far
This is a different event from the High Times Cannabis Cup. Leafly writes that once that event had gone from Amsterdam, it looked for a while as though the Highlife Cup was the only Dutch contest still running1. For three years the cup held its awards ceremony at Amsterdam's Cannabis Liberation Day. After that, the celebration went underground1. In the year Leafly wrote its article, the winners were simply posted online in June, with no public ceremony1. The article does not name that year. The page is marked as last updated on 28 July 2020.
A separate trade fair also used the Highlife name. Leafly says Dutch authorities pushed that fair out, and that its last Amsterdam edition was in 20074. The same article calls the fair the template for European cannabis festivals such as Spannabis and Cannafest5. The sources do not say how the fair and the cup were connected, apart from the shared name.
03How it runs and who is around it
Leafly describes the judging as done by a single panel of expert judges, and every judge samples every entry1. That sets it apart from contests where the entrants themselves do the judging. Leafly contributor Derrick Bergman says he has sat on several cannabis cup juries, the Highlife Cup among them4. He describes himself as a Dutch journalist, photographer and activist who has covered cannabis culture since 19941.
SeedFinder's records show how the results were laid out. In 2004 the categories were split by type of business (coffeeshops, growshops and seedbanks) and by growing style (Bio, Hydro and Outdoor), with podium places in each group6. That year Sensi Smile won the overall Cannabis Cup / Best Cannabis title with Early Skunk6. The 2008 results used a similar layout. Far Out won the Outdoor coffeeshop group with Top 44, and DNA Genetics won the Hydro seedbank group with Chocolope7.
04Where things stand now
The most recent account in the sources is the Leafly article marked as last updated on 28 July 2020. It says the cup's celebration had gone underground1. None of the sources say anything about the cup after that. SeedFinder's year picker lists winners for every year from 2002 to 20197, but the sources do not show whether the cup ran after 2019.
So the available material cannot say whether the cup is still active. Anyone who needs a current answer should check with the organisers directly.
The results, in our data
CannaLib holds 866 results from this cup across 25 years (2002 to 2026), 693 of them matched to a strain in the catalogue.
Recent first-place strains
| Year | Strain | Category | Entrant |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Sticky Queen | Seeds / Indica |  Royal Queen Seeds |
| 2026 | Green Crack Punch | Seeds / Sativa | Royal Queen Seeds |
| 2026 | Triple G Auto | Seeds / Autoflower | Royal Queen Seeds |
| 2026 | Liberty Haze | Seeds / Outdoor | Genesis BV |
| 2026 | Karma Zizi | Wietexperiment / Indica | Club 69 |
| 2026 | Crumbled Lime | Wietexperiment / Sativa | Club 69 |
| 2026 | Sub Zero | Wietexperiment / N-A | Cool Running |
| 2026 | Rainbow Zizi | Wietexperiment / Huisfavo | Club 69 |
| 2026 | Candy Chrome | Coffeeshop / Indica | Dizzy Duck |
| 2026 | Black Amnesia | Coffeeshop / Sativa | Dizzy Duck |
| 2026 | Boujee Bitch | Coffeeshop / Import N-A | Marbella |
| 2026 | Zizi | Coffeeshop / N-A EU | Magic Den Haag |
| 2026 | Ogz | Coffeeshop / Hasj Special | Marbella |
| 2026 | Doctor Haze | Coffeeshop / Potency Cup Wiet 2026 | Fly |
Editions on record
- 2002 · Netherlands
- 2003 · Netherlands
- 2004 · Netherlands
- 2005 · Netherlands
- 2006 · Netherlands
- 2007 · Netherlands
- 2008 · Netherlands
- 2009 · Netherlands
- 2010 · Netherlands
- 2011 · Netherlands
- 2012 · Ruigoord, Amsterdam (CannabisCupWinners)
- 2013 · Cannabis Liberation Day, Amsterdam
- 2014 · Cannabis Liberation Day, Flevopark, Amsterdam
- 2015 · Cannabis Liberation Day, Amsterdam
- 2016 · Cannabis Liberation Day, Amsterdam
- 2017 · Netherlands
- 2018 · Netherlands
- 2019 · Holland (April 2019)
- 2020 · Netherlands
- 2021 · The Netherlands (live stream 4 June 2021)
- 2022 · Amsterdam (10 June 2022)
- 2023 · Amsterdam (9 June 2023)
- 2024 · Brabant (6 June 2024)
- 2025 · Brabant
- 2026 · Breda (4 June 2026)
Sources
- With Cannabis Cup Gone, Two New Dutch Cannabis Competitions Emerge | Leafly
- Inside a Secret Dutch Cannabis Competition | Leafly (oldest Dutch competition)
- Highlife Cup :: Cannabis Cup Winner :: SeedFinder.eu (2004)
- Inside a Secret Dutch Cannabis Competition | Leafly (Highlife fair, Bergman jury service)
- Inside a Secret Dutch Cannabis Competition | Leafly (fair as festival template)
- Highlife Cup :: Cannabis Cup Winner :: SeedFinder.eu (2004 results)
- Highlife Cup :: Cannabis Cup Winner :: SeedFinder.eu (2008 results and year list)
Written from the sources above and checked on 2026-10-29. Spot an error? Tell us on the contact page.