IN MEMORIAM
Frenchy Cannoli
Frenchy Cannoli was a California-based teacher, consultant, artisan, and activist dedicated to the production and appreciation of traditional cannabis concentrates.
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Frenchy grew up in Nice, France but left home as soon as he could, inspired by the promise of exotic adventure — and by the imported hashish common in the late-60s Europe. He lived nomadically for over twenty years, staying with traditional producers and learning techniques handed down over generations. This took him from Morocco to Mexico, to Nepal, Pakistan, and India, where he spent eight growing seasons living in caves and harvesting cannabis resin with Parvati Valley cultivators. Eventually, he settled with his family in California, where early medical access laws let him go from hiding his life’s work to producing legal cannabis concentrates.
Life
During his lifetime, Frenchy taught his “Lost Art of the Hashishin” seminars to 1,000s of aspiring concentrate-makers. An advocate of open-source knowledge-sharing, Frenchy freely demonstrated his techniques on Youtube, as well as with his 194,000+ Instagram followers. He likewise pushed for broader post-legalization public education: beyond working to develop hashish grading standards, Frenchy was a prominent supporter of regional growing certifications for cannabis production, inspired by appellation d'origine contrôlée rules like those protecting the integrity of Bordeaux wines.
Vision
He’s was also developing a feature-length documentary, Frenchy Dreams of Hashish with documentary filmmaker Jake Remington of collabonyc that showcases the challenges legalization has brought to small California farms. Jake and Frenchy’s wife, Kimberly are working to complete the docu-series.
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Frenchy’s lively personality and unique expertise made him a sought-after international speaker, on topics such as cannabis terroir, the promise of organic and regenerative cultivation approaches, and the importance of independent “craft” production. He also wrote about the science and global history of cannabis for publications including Extraction Magazine (USA), Skunk (Canada), Weed World (England), and Dolce Vita (Italy). And finished the first draft of a book on the history of cannabis concentrates that his wife is editing for publication.
