With products like the new 1906 spirits, the full liquor to weed conversion is almost complete
Anybody who has replaced frequent boozing with cannabis knows just how dire things surely are for the makers of alcohol. We’re not suggesting or predicting trends that market numbers aren’t showing us already; one recent study found that “on average, participants drank about 25 percent fewer alcoholic beverages after using cannabis compared to when alcohol was consumed alone.”
And so on, and so forth. We could cherrypick findings for days, but you get the picture. Booze is on the ropes, and we can only imagine the general interest dwindling further as access and education around much safer psychedelics increases. But that’s a tangent for tomorrow.
For now, we’re talking about segueing from traditional cocktails to cannabis. The conversion isn’t always simple. People may increasingly choose to get stoned instead of drunk, but then there’s the whole social situation. When you’re out with friends and fidgety and thirsty and you really want to avoid grabbing for an IPA and getting cockeyed like the old days, what are your THC-infused options? One manufacturer caught our attention this week.
1906 Spirits
A particularly interesting new option comes from 1906, the makers of those wonderful weed pills that help you chill, screw, and study. And sleep if you have any time left over. The company already works outside of the state-licensed marketplace that it used to be popular in by using federally legal hemp-derived cannabinoids.
But its latest move, an neutral infusion billed as the “vodka of cannabis,” is less of a dispensary or wellness item and more like something you’d find in a dry liquor store like Dray in Cambridge (if they sold that kind of thing, which they can’t).
This is hardly an entirely new concept. Besides people infusing their own weed bevies for thousands of years, there are similar concepts already available—Calmezzi, Pamos, and Levity, to name a few. We hope to sample all of them and report back on the flavors and effects. In the meantime, it’s worth noting the seemingly organic buzz around this new treat from a well liked brand, which comes in a shelf-worthy 750 ml bottle with 200 mg of neutral-tasting THC and that much CBG to boot. Drink up. Toast the future.
These are, of course, confusing observations to make. And we apologize for passing over the several seltzer and soda brands that are playing by the state rules and in many cases producing great products for adult consumers and medical patients. But while Massachusetts may have thrown a wrench into its own infused beverage renaissance last year by banishing hemp-derived drinks from liquor and mini-mart shelves, it’s nonetheless true that people are looking for new liquid options, and companies like 1906 are delivering.
