\u201cThe day that Coca-Cola enters the cannabis industry\u201d has long been the sort of specter that activists and investors alike have conjured to symbolize the arrival of the corporate hoard to the legal weed party, a specter that marches alongside \u201cthe day the suits from Goldman Sachs arrive\u201d and \u201cthe day Monsanto patents its own strain.\u201d<\/p>\n
In other words, it seems inevitable that Coca-Cola will one day create a cannabis-infused beverage \u2014 most likely if the federal government legalizes cannabis \u2014 and that is in large part because there is an eager audience of people who want to consume cannabis in liquid form.<\/p>\n
According to\u00a0a February report from Zenith Global<\/a>, Americans spent $89 million on cannabis beverages in 2018. That same report estimated the U.S. cannabis-infused drink market would grow to $1.4 billion by 2024. As for the international potential,\u00a0a report published in February from Zion Market Research<\/a>\u00a0valued the global cannabis beverage market at $1.6 billion in 2018 and estimated that it would generate $4.46 billion by 2025.<\/p>\n For now, at least, Coca-Cola hasn\u2019t jumped in the cannabis game. Last September,\u00a0BNN Bloomberg reported<\/a>\u00a0that Coca-Cola was \u201cin serious talks\u201d with the Canadian licensed producer Aurora Cannabis Inc. to develop CBD-infused beverages, but the massive multinational beverage corporation has since stalled on any development. Warren Buffett, whose holding company Berkshire Hathaway is Coca-Cola\u2019s largest shareholder,\u00a0told FOX Business last week<\/a>\u00a0that he didn\u2019t think it\u2019d be good for Coca-Cola\u2019s wholesome brand image if it were to partner with a marijuana company.<\/p>\n But while Coca-Cola remains \u201cclosely watching\u201d the growth of the CBD market (as company spokesman Kent Landers told BNN Bloomberg), a handful of much smaller companies are looking to stake their claim in the burgeoning cannabis beverages market.<\/p>\n Many of these beverage companies came to Northern California\u2019s Hall of Flowers<\/a> last week, a trade show in Santa Rosa that showcased the brands trying to survive in\u00a0the nation\u2019s largest cannabis market<\/a>. Each of the cannabis beverage companies present had drastically different interpretations of what an infused drink could look like, though representatives from all of the companies agreed that they expected their consumer base to expand quickly in the coming years.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s about disrupting alcohol, not about competing with edibles,\u201d says Michael Sawyer, the founder of New Frontier Brewing Company. Started in 2017 and re-launched in 2018 after California\u2019s adult-use regulations came online, New Frontier currently offers one beer style \u2014\u00a0a light lager\u00a0\u2014 but they\u2019re planning on releasing more styles soon. And it really is a beer, not just a hop-flavored beverage, with a small frothy head, herbal flavor notes and light carbonation.<\/p>\n The beer is brewed in San Diego as a regular craft lager before all the alcohol is evaporated out,\u00a0per California regulations that prohibit the selling of cannabis-infused alcohol<\/a>. Then, New Frontier infuses cannabis in the beer through a proprietary formula that Sawyer says fully suspends the THC particles in the drink.<\/p>\n Two Roots Brewing Co., also based in San Diego, takes a similar approach, crafting five styles of what they call a \u201ccannabier:\u201d a lager, a stout, an IPA, a blonde ale and a wheat beer.<\/p>\n \u201cDrinking beer is a tried and true consumption method,\u201d says Nathan Kalish, a sales executive with Two Roots, explaining why the company thinks there\u2019s a large audience of \u201cmainstream consumers\u201d looking to drink cannabis. He says, much like with alcoholic beer, consumers should feel the effects around 10 to 15 minutes after drinking and can control the sort of effects they are going to receive based on how much they drink.<\/p>\n Instead of pushing for a crowd interested in recreational consumption, Good Stuff Tonics is approaching the cannabis beverage equation from a decidedly more medicinal angle. Each 8-ounce brown glass bottle of its Natural Health Lemonade contains a whopping 100 mg of THC, which means it\u2019s also accompanied by a dosing cup \u2014 much like a cough syrup bottle \u2014 that measures out a maximum of 10 mg of THC.<\/p>\n \u201cThe biggest hurdle we\u2019re facing is the fear of the edible that people have,\u201d says co-founder Billy Roberts. To combat this, the brand is working on educating potential consumers about the health benefits of their lemonades. While Roberts says that people can add a small amount of the lemonade (which is much more akin to a syrup than a juice) to sparkling water or a cocktail, it\u2019s also easy to imagine someone swallowing a spoonful like the castor oil medications of yore.<\/p>\n \u201cIt might be a small niche now, but we think it will grow,\u201d says Roberts.<\/p>\n Think Jarritos. Think Fanta. California Dreaming\u2019s concoctions land firmly in soft drink territory, with a splash of cannabis (and barely any flavor from the plant). The company says it doesn\u2019t add any sugar to its fruit sodas, just all-natural fruit juice, but its drinks are still sweet enough to fit in on convenience store shelves. Despite stereotypes, children and teens (basically, anyone unable to consume cannabis legally in California) aren\u2019t the only ones who like saccharine sodas, which is what\u00a0the well-funded company<\/a>\u00a0is betting on.<\/p>\n \u201cOur consumers range from the low-dose, mainstream consumers all the way to the heavy-hitters who want to drink it while they are smoking,\u201d says Jon Bishop, vice president of marketing for California Dreaming.<\/p>\n Cold-brew coffee infused with craft cannabis? There\u2019s definitely an audience there \u2014 if not the audience parodied by conservative pundits and meme accounts alike as emblematic of small-minded urban elite pretention. Somatik\u2019s\u00a0award-winning coffee<\/a>\u00a0is made using single-origin beans from San Francisco\u2019s Ritual Coffee Roasters, and the brand also offers infused chocolate-covered coffee beans that they call \u201csparks.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to plant a seed, and grow community by creating rituals to normalize the integration of cannabis into your daily life,\u201d the Somatik website reads. \u201cYou are magic.\u201d<\/p>\n Shooting for the niche of consumers more concerned with effect than taste,\u00a0Mood 33<\/a>\u00a0offers three \u201cmood\u201d teas and tonics, which it says is formulated after Chinese remedies. Mood 33\u2019s drinks are almost similar to a kombucha, with their sweet, herbal, carbonated flavors.<\/p>\n \u201cJoy can be a coffee replacement in the morning, Peace is great before a yoga class, Calm can be a red wine replacement,\u201d says Sabrina Vollmer, a store leader and brand ambassador for Mood 33. \u201cEach drink is personal.\u201d<\/p>\n The formulations have different balances of THC and CBD, and they list the various\u00a0terpenes<\/a>\u00a0included in each drink, following the\u00a0\u201centourage effect\u201d<\/a> idea that cannabis\u2019 hundreds of cannabinoids and terpenes work together to produce different effects.<\/p>\n This partnership between famed California brewery Lagunitas and concentrate maker AbsoluteXtracts is not a beer (though its classic beer bottle container and label might fool you), but an \u201cIPA-inspired,\u201d THC-infused sparkling water. Rather than a brewski, this drink tastes more like a La Croix. Basically, it\u2019s a somewhat bitter carbonated water beverage.<\/p>\n \u201cIt started as a partnership with our neighbors at Lagunitas, rather than a flavor idea,\u201d says Jeff Henderson, brand manager with HiFi Hops. He said it came after SuperCritical (a Lagunitas beer infused with AbsoluteXtracts\u2019 terpenes), and in response to California\u2019s stricter new regulations around infused alcohol. <\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong>\u00a0what sort of cannabis beverage would you want to try?<\/p>\n The post The Potential & Promise of the Cannabis Beverage Market<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe day that Coca-Cola enters the cannabis industry\u201d has long been the sort of specter that activists and investors alike have conjured to symbolize the arrival of the corporate hoard to the legal weed party, a specter that marches alongside \u201cthe day the suits from Goldman Sachs arrive\u201d and \u201ctheContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9914,50,4041,170,9855,9915,687,9916,9917,9918,9919,420],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35112"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35112"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35113,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35112\/revisions\/35113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Non-Alcoholic Cannabis Beer: New Frontier Brewing Company & Two Roots<\/h4>\n
Herbal Syrups: The Good Stuff Tonics\u2019 Natural Health Lemonade<\/h4>\n
Soft Drinks: California Dreaming<\/h4>\n
Coffee: Somatik<\/h4>\n
Wellness Teas: Mood33<\/h4>\n
La Croix?: HiFi Hops<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: The Potential & Promise of the Cannabis Beverage Market<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"