Now that the summer vacation season is in full swing, weed fans – and the curious weed – are ready to kick it poolside, kick back some crazy refreshing, all-local THC-infused drinks, and top the gas prices at the corner of La Cienega and Beverly boulevards.
The only hurdle is figuring out what to buy.
That’s because while we’ve been doing double-masking and wandering sneezes, the cannabis-infused beverage category has grown faster than Pete Davidson’s social influence.
According to the cannabis trend tracking company Headset, the California market was the fastest-growing in the country in 2021, when the number of cannabis drinks offered in the state nearly doubled to 530.
Sure, the drink labels will tell you how much THC (the psychoactive ingredient that gets you high) is in the drink and will probably (but not always) indicate the flavor profile. But that’s not much to go on, and far too often, choosing a weed drink felt more like taking your taste buds on a weed-tasting blind date than making an informed decision.
Until now.
To help you find the perfect poolside palates for the summer season — or at least drastically reduce the field — a cadre of about a dozen colleagues and friends called the Elite Beverage Tasting Squad (EBTS) pulled into my backyard. For a 17-drink test with the goal of collectively (see what I did there?) 10 THC-infused drinks recommend and ranking them by taste.
After nearly three hours, we stopped at five solid suggestions.
That’s because most options (some industry-recommended, some bestsellers, and others chosen randomly) suffered from a low fruit-seltzer similarity, an unforgivably unsavory aftertaste, or both. A Delta-8 THC-infused drink called Party Water from Party Beer Co. previewed: “I feel like a piece of celery has been spit in my mouth.” Aiming for an India Pale Ale flavor, Ceria Brewing Co.’s indie wave came closer to “bitter hookah water” with the scent of “unrefrigerated Thanksgiving leftovers” and high in THC (25 milligrams per 12-ounce can). And HVY Marg of Heavy Hitters drew comparisons with ‘dirty socks’ and ‘window cleaner’.
But the five featured below? They represent the taste-test all-stars and are worth checking out if you need to dive into your summer to-do list to delve deeper into the world of weed-infused drinks. It is not intended to be definitive but a starting point. So please email [email protected] if there is a weed drink that you think should be included in a future taste test. And remember, as with all things weed, it’s better to start low (in milligrams) and go slow (i.e., pace yourself) because you can always take more but can’t take less. Take it — and no one wants you to be the first freakout of summer.
