HASHISH IS NOT JUST A CONCENTRATE

I know I’m sticking my neck out, but hear me out. Of course, technically, hash is a concentrated form of THC derived from the female flower of the cannabis plant. But that is where the two part, irreconcilably. For just like vintage wine and pure corn ethanol have something in common, the real difference is far more than merely the amount of alcohol in the final beverage. 

The cannabis industry, so far, has unconscionably included hash with everything else concentrated from the raw plant. This is unacceptable to the Craft Hash industry, and should be to the consumer as well. We all know the psycho-active ingredient is THC. The game has been one of simply refining the amount of this active ingredient as the plant material is torn to chemical shreds and separated into its component parts. The diagram below shows the various products spun off from the THC concentration process:

THC Content:       10-20%        20-30%        30-40%       40-60%        80-90%

                                RAW         INFUSED          DRY           CURED      HEAT PRESS

                             FLOWER     PRE-ROLL        SHAKE         HASH           ROSIN

In the case of alcohol, chemically known as ethanol, there are only four different methods for producing it from sugars and starches using a fermentation process. One of the simplest and oldest, of course, is to simply ferment cereal grains such as barley or wheat, and or sugary honey, to 5% or 8% ethanol content and drink the whole damned thing before some other micro biotic process can spoil the effort in an unwanted manner. That’s Beer.

Another very popular method, is to ferment sugary fruit, mainly grapes, into a rotting slurry until, at about 20% ethanol concentration, the little yeasts pissing out all that alcohol finally poison themselves, happily dying in their own waste. The slurry is filtered, settled, aged in controlled conditions, bottled, and later enjoyed as a fine, hand-crafted vintage wine. 

The next method partially distills the fruit slurry by carefully heating and evaporating ethanol, along with the more volatile or easily evaporated organic flavonoid chemicals, capturing an alcohol-rich condensate heavily flavored with essential wine chemistry, yielding a “brandied wine.” Depending on the process and how well the vapors are recaptured, a concentrated form of wine is produced with alcohol ratios as high as 30% to 40%. That’s brandy.

Its new-world cousin, tequila, is similarly brandied from the slurry of a cheap local starchy cactus plant, agave. Aging is optional, but it is apparent that some of the agave plant flavors survive the distilling process, and the resultant alcohol-cactus distillate contains a particular flavor and kick that is instantly recognizable. At last count, there are over fifteen hundred different distinct tequilas made uniquely by different plant varieties, fermentation processes, and the intentionally hand-crafted “dirty” distilling process that deliberately contaminates the alcohol with other volatile flavored chemicals from a bitter, otherwise useless cactus. Human taste is inscrutable when it comes to enjoying a stimulating beverage.

The final method—and the way that over 90% of all alcoholic beverages are made today—comes from a pure distillation of ethanol from corn starch. Alcohol is separated, isolated, and concentrated in a long separating condenser; think of the curly part of the old traditional pot still. It gets re-distilled as many times as necessary to remove all water and any other foreign contaminants, yielding a final product of 99.9% purity. This industrial food-grade ethanol is used to make just about every form of alcoholic beverage conceivable, including just about all whiskeys, bourbons, vodkas, rums, and damned near every new flavored wine-like beverage, including some ciders. True wine lovers look at boxed and canned fruit-flavored ethanol drinks as an insult to the intelligent palette. You can imbibe that way, but Bob, from Bob’s Burgers, explains, “…you’d have to have no heart and your soul would be dead.”

The world of cannabis seems to follow a similar model, in that the goal for most new processors is to simply go for separating out the active substance, THC, and then reconstitute it into all kinds of consumable products, mistakenly labeling them as hash or rosin infusion. Like a fine wine, there is only one way to enjoy the full benefits, depth of flavors, and coordinated effects from the female flower, the fruit of the vine. Like wine, it is the patient but precise harvesting and separation of the fruit from the plant and with it, producing a well-made, carefully cured, and naturally preserved cake-form of concentrated all-natural cannabis rosin pods.

By picking the fruit—the rosin pod—and squeezing it into a cake that is aged and cured to a form that best contains and preserves all the complex chemistry of the harvested pod, true Craft Hash captures the full essence of the unique flavorful flower, along with all the complex cannabinoids and terpenes that modern varietal strains of cannabis provide in abundance. Craft Hash is arguably the only way to enjoy the full spectrum of the complete cannabis smoking experience, since its purer form reduces contaminating plant material and unnecessary burning (and inhaling) of harmful tars and asphalts.

The use of a traditional long-stem brass hash pipe or a more modern ice bong is highly recommended to further reduce these harmful effects of smoking, as long as the product itself is pure and free from all traces of foreign chemicals or contaminants. The volatile cannabis compounds evaporate typically at temperatures less than 175 degrees Celsius (350 degrees F) with terpenes evaporating as low as room temperature. Temperature control in the harvesting and curing process is key to producing a quality, full-spectrum Craft Hash that seals in such volatile compounds, preserving and improving the flower’s unique characteristics for later use when broken open, heated to vaporization temperatures, cooled, and inhaled.

Hash has been the traditionally refined form of preserving and enjoying the cannabis plant since before recorded history. Nobody in their right mind, back then, would actually smoke the raw dried plant flower as we do today. Cannabis grew like weeds in huge fields of tree-like plants in cool sunny high-altitude environments. It was easy (with lots of human-power) to simply hand-crush the flower buds before they were fully formed with seeds, and collect the sticky trichome-rich material on their hands and skin, then dried, pressed into large balls of gooey brown material, and put away to cure in cold dark dry places.

Modern, highly inbred varieties require a slightly more mechanistic approach. A well-made Craft Hash starts with a high potency well-trimmed varietal, or a creative blend of varietal flower and flower parts. The flower is carefully broken into small pieces and introduced into an ice-bath wash to efficiently cool the rosin pods to near freezing. The plastic-like micro-ball of rosin pod becomes physically very hard and brittle. Gentle agitation snaps the pods from their stalks, freeing them up in the ice bath. The solution is gently sieved to remove the particulate plant matter, leaving only the tiny THC-rich spheroids separated into their characteristic size ranges, effectively plucking them from the rest of the non-active hemp plant. 

If one merely dries the light brown slurry recovered directly from the sieve, so-called “bubble hash” results, which is just raw trichomes or rosin pods in a light fluffy powder form. As there is no pressing together or curing of the pods, the loose pods quickly leak out all their more volatile compounds such as terpenes, leaving a flavorless THC-rich powder usually resigned to serve as an additive to enhance regular cannabis flower pre-rolls. This reminds me of the fruit-juice flavored cocktails in a can, with ethanol added for the buzz. It’s convenient and fast, but you miss most of the sights and flavors along the way.

True Craft Hash begins right after the wash, when the slurry is carefully hand-pressed, removing 90% of the ice-bath water and carefully sticking the pods together under modest pressure. It is immediately placed into a proprietary curing environment, where the pressed hash is slowly dried of the balance of its water content, gaining a darker brown patina color as the exposed surface rosin pod skins oxidize like caramel. This process takes time, but it allows the rosin pods to partially meld together to form a gooey substance, sealing and trapping the rich cannabinoid inner compounds in a plastic-like matrix of fused rosin pods. 

After curing, the hash can be formed into whatever physical form desired for long term storage, preservation, and eventual consumption. Traditionally, it was formed into 500-gram balls, about the size of a modern softball, and polished to a dark shine from gentle smoothing by warm oxidizing hands of the novice monk, endlessly chanting their mantra prayers. Like European monks who made wine in the low mountain valleys of France and Italy, the Hindu and Buddhist monks of the mountainous regions of south Asia made hash to help relieve the dullness of practicing their daily monastic chores. 

For the high Himalayan monasteries, the old dry wooden beams in the super structure of the temples became ideal aging platforms. Here the hash cured slowly in the cold dry mountain air, gaining a dark patina, further sealing in and preserving for years all the complex cannabinoid chemical soup inside. Some claim this aging allows further chemical activity, perhaps creating a more smooth and mellow smoking experience while preserving all the rich flavors, smells, exotic compounds, and cannabinoid nuances of the unique mother flower.

Because of these critical differences, Craft Hash should be categorized within its own kind—and not be grouped haphazardly with dab rosins and THC-laced gummy bears. Craft Hash should be well defined and separated from all other non-specific varietal concentrates and any product artificially enhanced or doped with purified THC. 

Craft Hash could be classified along with all other cannabis products that are naturally refined from a specified varietal strain, identified by its growth location and the year of harvest. Properly made Craft Hash should have a THC content between 45% and 60%, reflecting the actual percentage of THC found in most varietal rosin pods, regardless of maturity or size.

Like a true craft wine in the alcohol business, Craft Hash deserves a special place alongside the best prime varietal flower buds and premium varietal Craft Hash laced pre-rolls. This allows such traditional and natural cannabis products to stand out and be recognized from the unfortunately huge pantheon of artificially doped products clogging the shelves of dispensaries. 

Consumers will realize, through education and exposure, that Craft Hash may be the best and purest way to enjoy the full benefits of all the new complex varietal flowers and their unique flavors and feelings. And as more consumers discover Craft Hash they will come to expect that Craft Hash makers adhere to high standards of quality and consistency. Industry standards can be insured by forming a responsible business association to help educate and advocate Craft Hash concerns and interests. Consumers will look to the responsible businesses supporting such an association as a welcome reassurance of the quality and the purity they desire. 

Yeti Scat Trails is proud to have these as our values and goals for Craft Hash. I look forward to the day when wine tasting rooms and hash tasting rooms can abide side by side as we celebrate the freedom to enjoy nature’s chemistry, smoothing and soothing our savage souls.