Hashbury Extracts Spreads the Love

Allie holds the palm of her hand near the quartz nail to make sure it has achieved the right temperature. A huge slab of Jesus OG from Hashbury Extracts is prepped. The fine sand-like powder has been decarboxylated using heat and parchment paper and is ready for the “selective rating system” of the Guru of Ganja, Ed Rosenthal.

“I don’t need your damn machines,” Ed says before taking a long, thick rip of the wax, which earns a “good to very good” rating on the cultivator’s personal scale.

One of our companions is swinging in a hammock nestled between three cannabis plants that Rosenthal is growing in his backyard.

“What was that we smoked?” he asks as the rest of us just smile and continue to partake in the concentrate buffet set before us on the patio table.

Adam, the extraction artist behind Hashbury Extracts, creates his concentrates using the ice water extraction technique. The Jesus OG is a whole-plant hash, a method which he says results “in more of a full cannabinoid profile.”

“With CO2 extractions as great as they are, you just loose the terps,” Allie says, referring to the terpene profiles present in cannabis that give each strain their signature scent and taste.

The Jesus OG tastes strongly like bubblegum. It’s powdery and sugary sweet with a background of sour citrus and a bit of spice. Adam looks at the glandular trichome heads with a true sense of pride in his creation. This type of ice wax would typically be reserved for a grower’s own head stash, but Adam wanted his product available to the people who need it.

“People will recognize this is some of the best medicine that can be produced,” Allie says.

The hash, which can be purchased at San Francisco-based dispensary the Apothecarium, is organic and natural with no chemicals and no possible harmful contaminants. By adding a bit of heat and decarboxylating the wax, more of the THC cannabinoid becomes present.

To demonstrate, Allie – who works alongside Adam as a patient consultant at the Apothecarium – places the Hashbury in a piece of parchment paper which is then folded and heated with the torch and the flat end of her wax tool.

“I’m basically pressing it out,” she says. “It is forming a little patty like a cheeseburger and that’s how you make ice water shatter.”

“Deal a dab today,” Rosenthal interjects, while he reviews the back cover of his new extract-focused book, “Beyond Buds.”

The book, which receives its final approval during the backyard smoke session, explores many facets of cannabis concentrates including water hash and its polar opposite, butane hash oil (BHO).

The “BHO craze” as Adam calls it, “got really popular really fast from almost being unheard of,” he says, noting that many BHO extractions are improperly purged – resulting in dangerous explosions and “giving the whole industry a bad name.”

For Adam, seeing the industry turn to a dangerous place scared him. He created Hashbury to spread knowledge of the extracts that can be created as opposed to consuming BHO, which if made improperly can contain traces of lubricants. Like the spirit and vibe of the Haight Ashbury neighborhood, Adam says he creates his hash “out of love.”

Originally published in issue 12 of Cannabis Now. LEARN MORE.