On a visit to a liquor store on the border of New Jersey and Connecticut two summers ago, Dov Friedman did a double take at a small section shelved apart from the hard seltzers and canned wines. After realizing these were THC-infused drinks—some at a staggering 20 mg per can, triggering memories many of us have of a “too-high high”—he brought as many as he could home to try with friends and family.
In June, Friedman and his wife, Susi Kenna, launched a low-dose wine alternative called Mariona. On paper the goal was simple and following a relatively well-trodden path: to offer customers an enjoyable drink at a relatively low (2.5 mg per serving, with just 10 mg per 750-ml bottle) dosage of hemp-derived THC. Justin Tidwell, cofounder of Nowadays, has been pursuing a similar goal since the spring of 2023; his brand offers THC-infused drinks at 2, 5, and 10 milligrams. The same goes for CANN, which launched its 2 mg seltzers over six years ago.
For all three brands, the lack of consumer education around the safety, terroir, and testing of cannabis-infused beverages is a looming threat to the allure of a sessionable high. “When you buy a beer like Modelo or Bud Light, you expect the same alcoholic experience every time,” says Tidwell. “That’s where we focus for the consumer.”
CANN’s CEO and cofounder, Jake Bullock, says the big three questions consumers have cared about up until this point are: “‘How will this make me feel? ‘How many can I have?’ and, ‘How do they taste?’” But as more brands flood the category and cannabis drinks become more mainstream with the introduction of consumption lounges and THC-friendly bars, drinkers are starting to ask the big questions about where their infused beverages are coming from.
As it turns out, the answers are (slightly) less complicated than trying to explain federal recreational cannabis regulations.
While terms like terroir and provenance are catnip for brewers, distillers, and winemakers, Morgan McLachlan, the master distiller behind AMASS, doesn’t use them in the expected way when talking about Afterdream, a micro-dose infused beverage she launched this May.
“As a distiller with a particular passion for terroir, it might seem peculiar that in the case of THC beverages, I think that terroir in the traditional sense of the word is not important,” she says. “The vast majority of consumers of THC beverages want delicious beverages, but don’t want to actually taste the terpenic compounds that are naturally found in the cannabis plant. Terpenes are flavorful, and also quite potent and bitter, and can be off-putting in their full expression in a beverage format.”
Instead, McLachlan encourages drinkers to contextualize terroir in THC beverages through what she calls “‘chain of custody’ documentation that shows the provenance of the cannabis extracts, as it moves through the supply chain system, from the grower, to the extract manufacturer, to our manufacturing facility.”
Similarly, Will Spartin, COO of Triple Cannabis Beverages, sees terroir as playing a more technical role in the overall process, one that drinkers frankly need to be less concerned with relative to the safety and testing of products.
“Similar to how winemakers harvest at specific times to affect a grape's sugar content, acidity, etc. a hemp grower harvests at the right time to ensure it does not exceed the [federally mandated] 0.3% THC threshold,” he says.
One way that brands like Nowadays achieve transparency and consistency in the potency of their drinks is by partnering with businesses like Oakland, California–based Vertosa, which provides liquid emulsions (the most popular technology to make infused beverages) to deliver cannabinoids like THC and CBD to over 160 brands across the country. Roughly 95% of them are in the beverage category.
“Emulsions are everywhere in food, from salad dressings to ice cream. Our process builds on that familiar science, but with pharmaceutical-level precision to achieve consistency, potency, and long-term stability while minimizing any cannabis taste,” says Vertosa’s CEO, Benjamin Larson.
To break it down: Cannabinoids come from oil extracts of the cannabis plant. These oils are refined to achieve the desired cannabinoid profile, then blended with carrier oils, water, and food-safe emulsifiers. The mixture goes through a homogenizer, which breaks the oil into microscopic droplets that stay evenly suspended. The result is a stable emulsion—a vehicle that can reliably deliver cannabinoids and other active ingredients in beverages without separating or losing effectiveness over time.
“We rigorously test all incoming cannabis extracts for potency and contaminants such as pesticides, heavy metals, and microbes [to] ensure a clean, consistent starting material,” Larson says. “Because our emulsions are ultimately diluted thousands of times when they’re infused into a beverage, this conservative approach ensures the final drink is safe, consistent, and exactly what’s on the label. We also partner with brands to conduct stability testing, so consumers can be confident that what’s in the can on day one is still there when they take their last sip.”
Infused beverage brands that make the effort to go to these lengths are eager to show off their investment by including QR codes or shortened links to detailed authenticity reports on their packaging or online. The absence of either can and should feel like a big red flag to drinkers.
“Some companies are hesitant to share sourcing details, either because they are cutting corners or because they worry that too much information might confuse consumers. That is a mistake,” explains Spartan. “Knowing the source of your THC should be just as important as knowing the ingredients in your food.”
Check out our 101 on eating and drinking your weed for a comprehensive glossary and more information on cannabis, CBD, and the state of federal and local laws around consumption.
Hemp-derived: Hemp-derived THC and marijuana-derived THC are chemically identical. Brands label their products as having hemp-derived THC primarily for compliance reasons so that regulators know that it is derived from the federally legal hemp plant and not the marijuana plant (which is part of an illegal substance category that includes heroin and LSD).
Delta-9 THC: Naturally occurring THC in both the marijuana plant and the hemp plant. Most reputable infused beverages (including those mentioned in this piece) on the market today are made with delta-9 THC.
Delta-8 THC and THCa: A synthetic version of THC. Most industry pros suggest avoiding these.
With upward of 30 sets of state regulations governing the use and sale of cannabis-infused drinks, labeling can get…patchy. “We’re seeing stickers over cans, black marker crossing things out, just chaos,” says Friedman. Tidwell explains, “We might have a different label in Georgia than in Kentucky. We just want to go to the federal government and say, “Hey, this is crazy. Let’s create one rule like for alcohol.”