Aficionado French Connection, founded by Californian veteran Leo Stone and French legacy grower Professor Q, fuses the Emerald Triangle’s outlaw roots with European artistry. To celebrate a new Breeding Grounds collab, we sat down with Leo & Q to learn more about their history of creating small-batch, organically grown strains from prized genetics.
Northern California’s Emerald Triangle is filled with breathtaking scenery, piecing together misty rivers and valleys, rolling hills, and coastal mountains that stretch right to the Pacific Ocean.
Beneath the fog, bushy ferns, and towering redwoods, you’ll find a very special breed of people that, decades ago, sowed the seeds of what is now a budding industry.
“There’s a certain mystique surrounding this county…To me, Humboldt means FREEDOM. It’s this free-wheeling outlaw spirit that lies at the core of decades of hard-earned cannabis grow knowledge that makes Humboldt a phenomenon in the world of ultra-fine cannabis,” says Leo Stone, an ex-veteran turned cannabis breeder and grower, in an interview with Cocktail Whisperer.
As the leader of Aficionado Estates, Leo won 44 cannabis awards, was inducted into the High Times Seed Bank Hall of Fame, and gathered 16 years of experience cultivating and breeding.
By his side, standing tall and proud yet humble, is Professor Q (or Quentin di Costanzo), an expert horticulturist with a focus on tissue culture, large-scale grows, and 15 years of experience in cannabis sectors across France, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Colombia, and the US.
Today, Leo and Q lead Aficionado French Connection, a luxury cannabis genetics brand that, together with Sensi Seeds, just launched brand-new cultivars stemming from exclusive genetics.
But long before that, Leo and Q built a partnership based on a passion for weed, a famous mutual friend, and a love for Skunk.
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A match made in heaven – And at the hands of Frenchy Cannoli & Critical Skunk
At the heart of Leo and Q´s connection lies Frenchy Cannoli, who, even after his passing in 2021, continues to be the world’s most trusted source when it comes to hash. Before parting, Frenchy brought Leo and Q together at Spannabis 2016.
Before this, Frenchy and Leo had been working closely together on Cannoli’s famous Californian hashish line.
¨Frenchy came to Barcelona a week before me to give a hash class,” Leo tells us. Whenever Frenchy would travel, he’d ask Leo if he wanted him to track down any particular strains.
“I was like ‘yeah, I want the Skunk,’” Leo says. And for good reason: Skunk was one of the primary strains grown by OG Mendocino Mike, Leo’s mentor in everything from soil composition to organic cultivation and selecting breeding stock.
Measuring 170 cm, tattooed from head to toe and rocking a long, silver beard, OG Mike is the incarnation of the Emerald Triangle´s outlaw cannabis culture. And to Leo, he couldn´t have been blessed with a better teacher.
“OG Mike talked of the parallels between growing cannabis, the teachings of the Kabbalah, and giving off the right vibrations while in the garden,” Leo told the Cocktail Whisperer.
“He taught me organic growing, building soil, and breeding,” Leo elaborated in our interview. ¨He said, ‘You can either come up here and learn quality or make a bunch of money. If you want to learn quality, you can stay with me.’ And I did, which was the best decision I ever made.”
OG Mike was known for growing classic strains, including Bubblegum OG and a delicious cut of Skunk that Leo remembers to this day and was desperate to track down on his visit to Barcelona. A week after talking to Frenchy, however, he found it.
“I’m at Spannabis with people at my booth and these four French gangsters wearing black leather jackets come up and say ‘we’re looking for Leo.’ The dude reaches into his jacket and I’m thinking, ‘oh it’s about to go down,’ but then he pulls out an iPad!¨ Leo laughs.
¨He told me ´we represent Professor Q, he has the skunk,´” Leo recalls. ¨I looked at it, and it looked like the Skunk OG Mike had back in the day. It wasn´t a pure Skunk, it was a Critical Skunk and it was fire!”
After checking the photos of the plants on the gangster´s iPad, Leo immediately left his booth to meet up with Q at a bar. Right there, an alliance was formed.
War, PTSD, and putting it all on the line
Besides their mutual friend, Frenchy, and their love for Skunk, Leo and Q immediately connected on a much deeper level; namely through their undeniable passion for the cannabis plant.
“I discovered cannabis at a time where if I never found it at that exact moment, I would’ve continued down an already reckless path of severe alcohol and drug abuse,” Leo tells the Cocktail Whisperer. He started using cannabis frequently after serving in Iraq to treat his PTSD symptoms.
“The ultimate blessing during this period was learning that cannabis was able to alter my consciousness and lower my anxiety far better than alcohol or antidepressants could ever dream of. I noticed the more I smoked, the less I drank. The less I drank, the less anger I had. The less anger I had, the more control I wielded over my PTSD,” he said in the interview.
“This first, deep, much-needed connection with cannabis allowed me, for the first time, to look deep within and address my issues at their root rather than settling for a sedated haze that awaits most vets.”
Q’s passion for weed, on the other hand, comes from a dedication to the art of cultivating it.
Speaking with Q, he explained “I finished my studies at agricultural school, and as soon as I was able to go to Spain, I went. I needed to leave France to develop my art.”
And that’s exactly what he did. While in Spain, Quentin ran underground grows for cannabis associations and clubs. Back home in Monaco, he also ran a successful landscaping business.
Over time, the Professor Q moniker became synonymous with spectacular weed grows that took up an entire house.
“This guy’s a G. He was sleeping on the couch,” Leo says, recalling his first visit to Q’s home.
“You walked into the door, and there was his kitchen and his bed, and the rest of the house and the basement was just plants – the cleanest grow you have ever seen in your life. You can tell by someone’s grow their commitment and their discipline to their craft,” he said.
And for both Leo and Q, those early days together immediately built an unbreakable bond. In fact, it was enough to convince Quentin to give up everything he’d built in Europe for a chance to join the US cannabis league.
“He had a very successful company in Monaco, yet he said ‘I’ll give all this up, I’ll put my company in the name of my workers, if I can come to Cali for a year and learn with you,’” Leo recalls.
“For me, it was like ‘I don’t want any way to go back,’ so I gave my company to all my workers because that way I NEEDED to find success,” Q adds.
In the Emerald Triangle, growers like Leo call that ‘crossing the chasm.’
“You either come here with a ton of money and buy your way in, or you come on a whim, just rolling the dice. And we both did that: I came to Mendo with a broken Beemer with a cracked windshield and Texas plates. I was sticking out like a sore thumb.”
At this point in their careers, neither Leo nor Q regrets taking that leap to cross the chasm.
The Sensi Seeds connection
Sensi Seeds got introduced to Aficionado after our man Tim Hoebee travelled to Los Angeles in 2019 and got his hands on Leo and Q’s Formula 1 F2 (a gassy Zkittlez descendant).
Growing out the beans at our facility in the Netherlands, we were immediately impressed by Formula 1’s looks, resilience, and of course, the fire flower she produced. It was clear to us that we’d found the contenders for our next Breeding Grounds collab.
And just like hash played a key role in bringing Leo and Q together, it also helped align the stars and unite Sensi Seeds with Aficionado once and for all:
Briefly after his trip to LA, Tim learned that famed hashmakers Cherry Blossom Belle (Frenchy Cannoli’s protege and Leo Stone’s sister) and Kimberley Cannoli (Frenchy’s wife) were looking for a venue to host their upcoming hashmaking workshop in Amsterdam.
Without hesitation, Tim organised for the event to be held at the Cannabis College (which has since closed its physical premises and now operates online).
At the dinner table after the event, Tim asked Kim about her brother’s work. By the next morning, Tim, Q, and Leo were all nerding out about genetics over chat.
Meet the new Aficionado French Connection x Sensi Seeds strains
After connecting virtually, Tim, Leo, and Professor Q sent each other genetics in the form of regular seeds.
For a year, the teams at Sensi Seeds and Aficionado French Connection sifted through the genetic stock we got from each other to find the right strains for our collab.
We grew out both males and females, looking for plants that were resilient and strong. From the females, we also took clones that we brought to flower in order to properly assess their aromas, flavours, and resin production.
On the Sensi Seeds side, we were blown away by Aficionado’s White Caviar, as well as Vanilla Berry Pie.
Meanwhile, Leo and Q had an eye for our Maple Leaf Indica and Hash Plant, two classic hash strains beloved for their ability to produce heavy amounts of resin.
From these select genetics stems the first of hopefully many Sensi Seeds x Aficionado French Connection Breeding Grounds collab strains:
Béluga Blanc
An indica-dominant hybrid descending from an Aficionado White Caviar female and a Maple Leaf Indica x Hash Plant male. The White Caviar was bred from real AJ Sour Diesel and a special cut of Chemdawg x Sensi Seeds’ Super Skunk, bred by Mike Klopp. Crossing White Caviar with our classic hash strains (Maple Leaf Indica and Hash Plant) produced a resilient hybrid that flowers in roughly 65 days and holds up well in temperate climates. Come harvest time, Béluga Blanc yields long, bright-green flowers that look almost white thanks to their thick coat of milky trichomes. Light her up, and you’ll enjoy strong, lingering notes of gas with a touch of elegant sweetness.
Bad Apple
A cross of Aficionado’s prized Apple Soda (which has won 8 cannabis cups) and Vanilla Berry Pie — a prime example of Mendo County Kush selected by Leo Stone. The Apple Soda combines a tried-and-true Sensi Seeds classic, Black Domina; a Colombian sativa known as Punto Rojo, and a Thai landrace that Professor Q found in some Thai brick weed. Meanwhile, the Vanilla Berry Pie comes from the cross of a Magnum Opus x Cherry Pie male and a Sunset Sherbet female. Light up a batch of Bad Apple and you’ll feel as if you just cracked open a can of bubbly apple soda while pumping your car full of diesel.
Both of these boutique Breeding Grounds strains were bred at Aficionado’s facility in Colombia. Of course, we didn’t pass up the opportunity to visit this country, which is renowned for its long history of landrace cannabis cultivation and stellar flower production.
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Winning as the underdog
Reflecting on the collab with Sensi Seeds, Leo finds the perfect analogy:
“I’ve always felt like we’re the underdogs of cannabis, and we were totally cool with that because we never quit and we’re really about our hustle. So, to get a call to collab with Sensi is like being a freelance F1 driver and getting called by Ferrari. It makes this real for us. Now’s the time to perform.”
And there’s no doubt they can.
Throughout their career, Leo and Q have been breeding “dumpers,” or resin-heavy strains ideal for making hash and concentrates. After all, that’s how they got to work so closely with Frenchy Cannoli.
“I wasn’t breeding for hash at the beginning. I was just breeding for the best expression, a certain resin profile, or specific morphological characteristics like an OG or a Sour,” Leo says.
“And it just so happened that what we were doing between 2011 to 2015 was really conducive to hash, so Frenchy started spinning our stuff,” says Leo.
Standing in the sun, Q and Leo take a moment to remember the legend that brought them together and laid down the foundations for this mighty collab.
“I think what Frenchy did with his hash was extracting the soul of the plant and showing that to people,” says Q. “We wouldn’t be here without him.”
Ready to grow some fire? Check out the Aficionado x Sensi Seeds collection here now, order your seeds, and get ready to grow some fire inspired by the world’s most beloved hash connoisseur and the mystique of the Emerald Triangle. Bon appétit!
- Disclaimer:Laws and regulations regarding cannabis cultivation differ from country to country. Sensi Seeds therefore strongly advises you to check your local laws and regulations. Do not act in conflict with the law.
