Frenchy Cannoli – A genius to remember

 

With the death of the legend and hashashin Frenchy Cannoli on the 18th of July 2021, one of the most respected members of our community has suddenly been taken from us, his family and his friends. The influence of his work and lectures on todays hash culture can simply not be estimated high enough. Therefore he recognized that there is still a lot to be done and risks ahead, that cannabis culture and extraction companies specifically need to face soon to follow the steps towards a fair and sustainable relegalisation.

To build the future, we first have to preserve the past. He was therefore for example eager to create incentives for local farmers to remain cultivating their local landraces instead of unwillingly endangering their heritage by switching to fashionable and seemingly profitable Californian or European genetics.

In search of a suitable method to make his lectures accessible without any restrictions for an international and diverse audience, he more and more embraced social media platforms, foremost Instagram, where he and his wife Kimberly are in a lively exchange with their community every day.

 

It was only a question of time, until like minded enthusiasts would help to amplify Frenchys influence and carry his message as far as possible. He and his work was always accompanied by a growing number of associates and protegees around the world, who help spread his knowledge. Or as Frenchy put it: Spread THE knowledge we only had the privilege to witness, gather, hold and be able to pass on during our limited given time frame.

He helped us to never forget the proven techniques of the cultures, that spend centuries in perfecting the extraction methods with their respective resources and local unfavorable commodities.

Frenchy Cannoli literally was a genius to remember.

An eye for detail and zero zero time to waste

Time is essential, as Frenchy was never tired to make clear, when he was teaching the rituals of correct sampling, preparing and curing different forms of extracts. Therefore he spend the last time traveling and teaching the world about his techniques from his home in Mendocino in the notorious Emerald Triangle region of California, where he found a professional home at the House of Aficionado.

He saw the most efficient way to pass on the techniques, in creating free access to a number of workshops, interviews, FAQs and lectures, that enable people to appropriate these methods and hopefully improve them more and more by implementing them in larger scale extraction operations and technical or scientific innovations over future decades.

Instead of using his status as an exclusive gatekeeper, he was more of a keymaster. He helped people to gain access to terrains of knowledge and to internalize traditional methods in hands-on-demonstrations, that were not only prohibited in their economic or scientific execution by many governments and drug laws and therefore in danger of almost being forgotten. Of course, it would also have been in the interest of many short sighted, greedy business owners, who saw possible money making opportunities in keeping these secrets in a small circle of a chosen few entrepreneurs and pharmaceutical companies. He did not only give away valuable information, he created its value by his way of spreading the information.

He is widely responsible for the current recognition of the hash culture and wide spread awareness of many long forgotten work steps and detailed tutorials and significantly shaped not only the way we nowadays talk about extraction for example in his publication „The Lost Art of the Hashashin“, but also the valuation and perspective that is taken towards the relative topic.

As adverse climate conditions and the need for improvisation with limited tools were often disregarded as a incalculable risk and manifestation of the local hardship, lack of education and poverty, Frenchys approach was to see these factors as the key to their unique quality. This attitude or seemed to have dominated all aspects of his professional life.

Frenchy was known to set to set the highest standards towards the sampled hash and the gentleness of the extraction, but never to play down or underestimated anyone. Even the observation or opinion of a beginner extractor or the question of a bystander, that might bring a broader background from their respective field of expertise, was always taken serious and answered in its full extend. He made sure to listen and watch, before he judged and was therefore able to see the small nuances, variations and inconsistencies in the outcome of certain washes or sieving runs and never tired of getting to the roots of certain phenomenons in his observations.

His personal story, knowledge, hard training and skill give him the routine and security to keep an open eye for significant details and an unbiased approach towards every new information. This shows his focus on potential future improvements and is the best possible way to gather data via research and enable to follow a truly sustainable approach.

A larger frame to sift information into knowledge

His live pursuit seemed to separate the trichome from the flower in manifolded and increasingly gentle ways and not only to understand every part of the process from seed over the growing, sifting, curing and packaging, but also to find explanations for the many observations he made, sampling hash for decades all around the world. He always seemed to be answering one questions by not being vain to ask three questions himself. Which may have gained him the reputation of being such a pleasant partner for a long and highly entertaining conversation for everyone involved.

Although he himself, as well as many formats throughout all forms of media, gave their best effort to capture his lessons and words, the spirit of Frenchy Cannoli could best be experienced by meeting and talking to him in person. An opportunity, that has now suddenly been taken from us sooner than anyone would have expected. We will do our best to carry his work, his techniques and hopefully also his particular humor as his quick and associative wit into every of our future projects and actions.

We are aware and deeply humbled by the role that has now fallen onto us as a global community, as activists, enthusiasts and foremost a group of friends that will forever share their love and admiration for Frenchy Cannoli.

Our thoughts are with his family and friends in these times.

May he forever rest in peace.

 

 

1. article about his late work in California published in Cannabis Now Magazine on Oct. 22nd 2015: https://cannabisnow.com/artisan-hash-frenchy-cannoli/
2. Seedbank Aficianado in Medocino California                                                    /www.aficionadoseeds.com
3. A list of his gathered articles  and other publications:                                   https://frenchycannoli.com/articles
4. The Lost Art of the Hashashin Part I in Weed World Magazine 137, Nov. 2018 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/59cd905351a5846569cfbbca/t/5c6c46b6104c7b6cbebf8679/1550599868539/Weed+World+Issue+137-compressed.pdf