Nothing says “summer” like picnics, barbecues and beach trips, all fueled by ice-cold beers and spiked seltzers.
However, alcohol is downright terrible for your health. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, long-term effects of alcohol include high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, liver disease, digestive problems, multiple kinds of cancer and mental health problems. A two-year pandemic hasn’t helped, either — one study shows that binge drinking has increased 21 percent since the onset of COVID-19.
Cannabis use is on the rise as well, with 38 states with medical marijuana programs and 18 states legalizing it recreationally. According to a 2019 report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), 43.5 million people reported using cannabis.
Studies suggest that cannabis may carry less of a risk compared to alcohol. Some low-dose infused beverages even include magnesium, L-theanine and other functionals and terpenes for specific applications, like sleeping or working out.
“We’re learning that alcohol is toxic at lower doses than we realized, so even a drink a day is definitely worse than a 5-milligram edible for (the) liver and probably worse for brain shrinkage long-term,” says Mitch Earleywine, professor of psychology at the University at Albany, SUNY, and author of Understanding Marijuana.
Low-dose THC beverages are a crisp, cool, non-alcoholic alternative that help you avoid feeling like you’re the only one not drinking at the barbecue.
Go “low and slow,” says Austin Stevenson, chief innovation officer at Vertosa, a cannabis chemistry company which produces active ingredients for infused product makers like Artet, Cann and Wunder. “People will start between 2 and 5 milligrams, then they’ll want to graduate to 10 milligrams” — the single-serving limit of cannabis beverages.
These beverages come in multiple dosing levels — starting at 2 milligrams all the way to 10 milligrams — and resemble popular sippables like seltzers, beers and cocktails, minus the hangover.
The Best Cannabis Beverages of 2022
Klaus
The three varieties of cannabis-infused beverages, mixed by Warren Bobrow, are for classic cock- tail lovers with a penchant for cannabis. Each can packs 10 milligrams of THC and high-quality ingredients found in restaurants and hotels, like extra hot and spicy ginger syrup from Pickett Brothers.
From the mind of the Cocktail Whisperer, Warren Bobrow, comes KLAUS™ Cannabis-Infused Beverages, made with the highest quality ingredients and the finest fruit extracts from France.
KLAUS™ – a delicious new cannabis-infused beverage made with the best ingredients for a healthier and euphoric buzz, has set its sights on the growing ‘ California-sober’ market and is ready to take the cannabis beverage culture to a whole new level.
Co-founded by “The Cocktail Whisperer,” Warren Bobrow, the first-of-its-kind premium product in the cannabis space, is here to quench your thirst and transform the way you think about and drink cannabis-infused beverages. Bobrow, a cannabis alchemist and cocktail aficionado, industry journalist and author of six books in the craft cocktail space, including his most recent Cannabis Cocktails, Mocktails and Tonics. It’s no wonder he and KLAUS’ team of industry leaders and creatives have created the most unique cannabis-infused craft mocktail in the ready-to-drink space to date.
Named after Bobrow’s 1800s German drinking gnome that he’s traveled much of the world with during his former career working in on/off premise liquor, KLAUS in’t like any other cannabis-infused beverage. First up is the KLAUS Mezzrole™, named after Louis Armstrong’s friend and fellow hep-cat, Mezz Mezzrow. A Mezzrole was slang for a finely crafted cannabis cigarette during the jazz era.
Robust and tangy with bursts of piquant Picketts™ ginger root syrup, gently giving way to palate soothing rice vinegar notes and the finest French lime puree, the refreshing beverage features a terpene-forward 10 mg THC infusion per can, only 16 calories, and less than 1g of sugar per serving.
At first sips, KLAUS fills the nose and mouth with the bold aromatics from the terpene-forward cannabis infusion. Dollops of zesty and zippy, caramelized, spicy ginger cane syrup come into view. Each sniff is framed by the exotic French Lime puree. Rice vinegar carries each sip into a multi-minute finish, ebullient with bursts of heady sea salt splashing over crushed minerals. The high comes on in minutes, leading into a talkative nature, relaxation, and confidence ensues. KLAUS has partnered with Sands Lane Ventures and creative agency MAMUS, with a mutual mission to create the highest quality and best tasting cannabis-infused mocktails. KLAUS aims to make it simple for newcomers to the cannabis space to have an enjoyable and delicious experience. KLAUS’ flavors bring a gentle rise in euphoria followed by a subtle smile, candid appreciation, and bemusement.
KLAUS is available at leading dispensaries in California including, The Vault in Palm Springs and SOLFUL in Sebastopol at the end of February. KLAUS is currently available as single-serve and soon to be in convenient 4-packs. To learn more, head to www.drinkklaus.com
About Klaus
KLAUS™ is a cannabis-infused beverage co-founded by “The Cocktail Whisperer” Warren Bobrow. KLAUS™ is named after Warren’s soused gnome “Klaus” who was born in 1851 in Germany. The KLAUS™ team brings together powerhouses in the field of cocktails, cannabis, branding and marketing. KLAUS™ mission is to create the most delicious, highest quality and best tasting cannabis-infused mocktails in the world and to make it simple for newcomers to the cannabis space to have an enjoyable and delicious experience.
About Sands Lane Ventures
Sands Lane Ventures is a purpose-driven venture studio building brands and enabling the better future we envision today. We believe that purpose-driven storytelling has the power to not only educate, inspire action and ignite change, but to also drive significant value. Sands Lane Ventures is part of the Sands Lane ecosystem, delivering strategic advisory services and value-added brand operations, supply chain management and investment support. We are focused on incubating and accelerating early stage consumer brands, taking a hands-on approach to activating opportunities through a unique and comprehensive lens, de-risking their business models and adding long term value through our ecosystem. Visit sandslane.com/ventures for more details.
About creative agency MAMUS
MAMUS is a creative agency with a Madison Ave. pedigree and deep brand experience including Mercedes-Benz, jetBlue Airways, BMW, Whole Foods and many more. MAMUS specializes in brand development for lifestyle, deep technology, cannabis, and luxury. Visit mamuscreative.com for more information.
Klaus Mezzrole Many cannabis-infused beverages taste like they were concocted by someone who has never tasted a proper cocktail in their life. Thankfully Klaus tapped the skills of acclaimed mixologist Warren Bobrow, aka the Cocktail Whisperer, to infuse a piquant punch of ginger with zesty lime with rice vinegar, resulting in an adult-quality drink with 10mg THC and < 1mg CBD THC per can.
The worlds of THC and alcohol haven’t really crossed over, and to be honest, that’s probably for the best. Not all potentially buzzy experiences need to or should be intertwined.
But if you take away booze from that crossover while keeping the idea of mixology in place, suddenly the small but growing industry of bartender-friendly, cannabinoid-infused “spirits” and mixers makes more sense.
We’ve covered this meeting-of-minds before, although not specifically related to THC, the main psychoactive compound in cannabis. First there’s Flyers, a line of alcohol-free sparkling cannabis cocktails with full-spectrum CBD distillates that are crafted, in part, by award-winning mixologist Ivy Mix. Then there’s The Pathfinder Hemp & Root, a non-alcoholic “spirit” fermented and distilled from hemp; two of the three founders have extensive liquor brand experience, and the mixer works nicely in both boozy and non-boozy drinks.
When I spoke with the founders of those drinks brands, they all suggested that THC-infused variations were on the way.
The first three bottles from MXXN.MXXN
One that’s already here? MXXN (pronounced “moon”). The BIPOC-founded brand claims to be the spirit industry’s first 1:1 non-alcoholic and THC-infused replacement for gin, tequila and bourbon. The company is led by Darnell Smith, a booze industry vet with over 15 years of experience at Diageo, Pernod Ricard and Bacardi.
“I was working in the spirits industry in product innovation and found myself drinking more than I cared to due to the nature of the profession,” Smith tells InsideHook. “I was looking for a way to cut back on alcohol but still take part in the social aspects associated with drinking and cocktail culture. And I had been a consumer of cannabis for chronic pain after 15 years as a football player and would make my own tinctures at home, so I started bringing the tinctures out to social events, ordering a tonic and lime and putting a few drops in. My wife encouraged me to find a way to bring the tincture and tonic idea to the public in some capacity.
MXXN’s website offers variations on well-known cocktails, although the proportions are interesting, given the idea that you’re getting about 6 mg of THC per 1.5 oz pour — an Old Fashioned riff, for example, suggests a very small .75 oz measurement of MXXN’s Kentucky Oak, as opposed to a standard 2 oz pour if you were using a regular bourbon.
We were recently able to try MXXN Jalisco Agave (the drink is available in California and direct-to-consumer in a few markets). It’s a cloudy, straw-colored liquid with grassy and floral notes. On the palate, it’s soft but also spicy and with a pronounced salinity — it’s not offensive on its own, but it feels much better suited for a cocktail. I turned my initial small pour into a very nice Paloma alternative, which lacked the usual alcohol “kick” but maintained the essence of agave and heightened the grapefruit notes (while also a touch of spice).
I’m not alone in my thoughts on how the product mixes. “When we started MXXN, we were trying to emulate the tastes of spirits in standalone form,” explains Smith, who also notes that bartenders were consistently giving feedback during the product’s formulation. “But we found it to be extremely difficult to find a substitute for the specific flavor and profile ethanol provides in that form, so we pivoted a bit to create a product that emulates the base flavor profiles of these spirits when mixed in a cocktail with other ingredients.
The recipe wasn’t an easy process.In the brand’s early stages, the technology wasn’t there to get the THC evenly distributed throughout the base formula (“Which for dosing reasons was an obvious problem,” Smith notes). They eventually utilized nanoemulsion technology from Vertosa to solve that problem, but the company also had to finalize the flavor profile and make the product shelf-stable, which proved more difficult to do without alcohol while still utilizing natural ingredients.
In the end, Smith thinks products like MXXN will appeal to the health-conscious (and non-boozy drinkers), but also believes they offer real potential to unite the worlds of drinks and cannabis.
“We’re not here to completely replace your booze or how you consume it,” he says. “We’re here to provide a new experience and evolve cocktail culture.”
The first release from Klaus, a THC-infused canned cocktail with no booze.Klaus
Klaus takes a different approach. And that involves a gnome.
Just launched, Klaus is a ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktail in a can, albeit with a “10 mg terpene-forward cannabis emulsion per drink” as opposed to a boozy ABV. These were crafted by popular mixologist Warren Bobrow, who credits…well, I’ll have him explain.
“The inspiration for my product, funnily enough, was my drinking gnome named Klaus,” says Bobrow. “Klaus traveled the world with me in my prior career in liquor sales. He also came with me to competitions where I served as a rum judge for both the Ministry of Rum and the Florida-based Rum XP.” (That association explains the launch of Klaus with Mezzrole, a take on the classic Ti’ Punch.)
As Bobrow remembers, he was signing copies of his drinks guide Bitters and Shrub Syrup Cocktails at the Pharmacy Museum when noticed an exhibit named “Cannabis in the Early Apothecary,” which led to an idea for his next book, Cannabis Cocktails, Mocktails and Tonics. And the success of that book led to the idea of creating a canned, THC-infused cocktail.
(Yes, but the actual gnome influence? “To me, Klaus is much more than just a German drinking gnome. He represents goodness, kindness and the amalgamation of my life experiences. Sure, he loves to drink, but he’s recently switched over to my refreshing infused mocktails.”)
For Bobrow, it was not an issue emphasizing the cannabis aspects of his drink. “The ‘craft’ in craft cocktails isn’t always about the liquor. It’s the balance of the ingredients,” he says. “My Mezzrole cocktail — named for Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet’s friend and cannabis dealer, Mezz Mezzrow — has no alcohol, but it’s terpene-forward. It smells like a perfectly cured cannabis bud and provides consumers with a lovely, relaxing, talkative yet grounded feeling.” (It’s apparently also great for sleep. We’ll have samples soon to review.)
Unlike some of his peers, Bobrow feels THC is a versatile and somewhat enviable ingredient to work into mixed drinks.
“It can be flavored with terpenes as an adjunct to the other fine ingredients in a craft cocktail, or it can be flavorless and woven into a seltzer,” he says. “To me, the process is not challenging because cannabis possesses terroir. The plant embodies the taste of the place it was grown, like wine, except there are perhaps even more terpenes in cannabis than wine.”
As for serving suggestions, Klaus’s drinks — which will soon include a riff on the Tiki classic Zombie — only have 16 calories and 0.6 grams of sugar per can; each of those 8 oz cans features 10 mg THC, which Bobrow estimates is perfect for two drinks and a nice mental middle ground. “We’re somewhere between a microdose and the opposite end where the effects are a little too strong.”
Even if their approaches (and taste profiles) differ, Bobrow and Smith share a similar audience expectation: health-conscious, social, open to a “buzz” but wanting to feel better in the next morning.
“Many folks in my former world of liquor struggle with alcohol, and several have already reached out to tell me how much this beverage means to them,” says Bobrow. “Alcohol and cannabis provide different experiences. I feel out of control when drinking liquor, and I think a lot of people can relate. But I’m not here to preach. I’m here to make the world’s best craft cannabis libations and raise the bar.”
Klaus and I have taken a trip, so to speak. We’re currently in Santa Rosa California to attend the Hall Of Flowers but took some time today to explore both the Cannadel and Jane Dispensaries! Incredible service and people!!!
The Stone Age Potcast interview with the CEO of Klaus Apothecaire LLC, 6x Author and Master Mixologist Warren Bobrow. We had a great time getting to know Warren and learning about craft cannabis infused mocktails. In fact, you can learn from home by purchasing one of his books off amazon. There are hundreds of recipes he has created that are sure to make to your next party a huge hit. Coming soon to California, Warren created Klaus which is a drink infused with 10mg of live resin. You can expect a unique terpene profile to accompany this craft drink along with a kick of fresh frozen thc extract to put you in that right state of mind. Available soon in Cali. Check out his column in the Cannabis Cactus Magazine online or print, an Arizona based cannabis magazine full of culture, entertaining stories, news, and much more. Make sure you check out their website and follow Warren to learn how to get cross faded the correct way.
Morristown, NJ is a nice mid-sized town located about an hour drive west/northwest of New York City. I’m born and raised here, which offers the opportunity to share some of my hidden places to get high.
The list is a long one, as I’m not just born. I graduated from prep school, Morristown-Beard in 1980. You can do the math on that one. I’ll be covering a couple at a time. So, you can enjoy the visuals of my walking tour.
Cannabis has only just become quasilegal in Morristown, NJ. I’m still pretty careful about smoking weed in the street. This isn’t New York City where all you smell these days is the stickysweet taint of weed burning. Not that I don’t like it, far from that- smoking cannabis in Morristown, NJ is probably still not such a great idea.
No matter what the voters have said in New Jersey regarding cannabis legality. The long-standing stigmas against smoking cannabis in public still rules the roost here.
But all is not doom and gloom. I’m sharing with you my hidden “underbelly” of where I like to smoke weed where I probably won’t get arrested, nor frowned upon by strangers. I own a gnome. His name is Klaus. Klaus is my mid 19th-century drinking gnome. He used to follow me around the globe when I was a master-mixologist and rum judge in the on and off premise beverage trade. Klaus traveled with me everywhere and he became quite famous for his rum fueled antics, but all that came to a crashing halt during Tales of the Cocktail in 2018. The halt was my leaving the liquor industry, forever when I quit drinking distilled spirits.
It was at Tales that Klaus suggested that I enter the cannabis industry, both as a journalist and as an author of the book, Cannabis Cocktails, Mocktails and Tonics. This suggestion probably saved my life because I’ve dropped nearly sixty pounds since leaving the liquor industry. Sure, he’s a drinking gnome, however Klaus enjoys the weed business much more. Travel is in his little terracotta heart and he loves getting stoned with me.
Klaus is starting this local journey today with a little bit of foot travel around two favored places in Morristown, NJ. This is the place where George Washington rested for a very cold winter during the Revolutionary War.
The first place that I got high over the years, where it was so risky to get stoned there, getting arrested was a probability. The Green in Morristown. The fountain, pictured is a good place to start any respectable journey into getting High in Morristown, NJ. I paused for a one-hitter (Green BodhiTenzin Kush) and remembered that just around the corner on the Green stood the pre-Colonial courthouse, long gone, and the Hanging Tree, also long gone.
The energy in this place is pronounced as this was quite the historic town during the Revolution. I’m sure many unsavory characters throughout history met their end at the bottom of a rope in this spot. You can feel it in your bones if you pause long enough.
On the back side of the Green is the First Presbyterian Church and just behind this grand stone edifice is the historic Churchyard and their preColonial cemetery. Back when I was a teenager, this wasn’t a place where you wanted to walk around in at night. It still may have that stigma with vestiges of a recent homeless camp off set just off into the poison ivy laced underbrush.
But during the day it’s a pretty place with headstones dating back to the early part of the 1700’s. I like to pay homage to the long-departed by smoking cannabis in this cemetery. It’s a serene place to get lit up and reflect on the residents who once graced the town. Their names are often intriguing in the study of history. I’m convinced that very few Morristown residents even know that this place exists… Much less come here to get stoned. It’s part of the journey in this town. To find places that are just off the beaten path, excellent for catching a fire.
