Cannabinoids can taste great when they’re smoked, vaped, eaten, and drunk.
There are plenty of options when it comes to cannabinoid drinks and how to make them. You can try canned or bottled beverages or make your own with syrups and oils.
Wondering how to make weed drinks that taste great and have the right level of potency? Keep reading to learn more about what cannabinoid drinks are and how to make them.
What are Cannabinoid Drinks?
Learning how to make weed-infused drinks starts with learning a little more about cannabinoids. It’s also important to understand the difference between two distinct legal categories when it comes to cannabinoids:
- “Weed” generally refers to Delta 9 THC that comes from cannabis plants. This form of Delta 9 is illegal federally. However, it’s legal in some states for medical use, recreational use, or both.
- Hemp-derived cannabinoids come from, unsurprisingly, hemp plants. The 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp-derived cannabinoids on the federal level. However, some states restrict or prohibit their use, possession, and/or sale.
Cannabinoids are chemicals found in both cannabis and hemp plants. These chemicals interact with the body’s endocannabinoid system.
Many cannabinoids produce psychoactive effects. These include altered perceptions, an increased sense of creativity, and an elevated mood. Examples include Delta 8, Delta 11, and HHC, as well as cannabis-derived Delta 9 THC.
Certain other cannabinoids, like CBD, aren’t psychoactive. They don’t change your state of mind or cause an elevated mood. For example, CBD may help to manage issues such as sleeplessness, inflammation, and pain.
Understanding Cannabinoid Beverages
Cannabinoids are readily absorbed and processed by the body in several ways. You can vape an oil containing cannabinoids, or smoke hemp flower that includes cannabinoids.
Vaping and smoking leads to your body absorbing cannabinoids without being processed in your digestive system. In practical terms, this means a quick onset of effects and a shorter duration as compared to edibles and drinks.
Edibles and drinks lead to largely the same experience as smoking and vaping, at least in the big picture. However, there are a few key differences to keep in mind when it comes to these options:
- These routes of administration cause cannabinoids to be metabolized by the liver.
- The onset is much more gradual than with smoking or vaping, generally taking about 30 minutes to two hours.
- The effects can feel more intense and persist for significantly longer.
- The overall process is much more gradual, in terms of both onset and the end of the experience.
What Kinds of Cannabinoid Beverages Are Available?
There are plenty of options when it comes to cannabinoid beverages.
You don’t need to worry about how to make a weed drink at home if you buy a prepackaged can or bottle, for example. These offerings include clear dosing instructions and contents on their labels, helping you stay informed, too.
What if you want to create the perfect beverage that aligns with your personal tastes? a syrup or tincture may be a better choice.
Each container of these concentrated offerings contains several doses. They’re easy to add to a variety of cocktails, mocktails, and other drink recipes.
You can come up with your own recipes, too. That’s something we’ll look at more closely in the next section.
How to Make Weed Drinks With Fun Flavors
You have plenty of options to consider when it comes to making your own weed drinks at home.
Prepackaged beverages are the most convenient overall. They come in a variety of flavors to please a wide range of palates, too. But what if you want a different taste, or just enjoy making drinks yourself?
One especially easy way to get started is to take a packaged drink or make a drink mix, then add a syrup or tincture to it.
Think of this as the cannabinoid version of the classic highball cocktail. It’s a small amount of syrup or tincture (instead of a liquor), a larger amount of a non-alcoholic mixer, and ice.
You can use sodas, juices, lemonade, and many other mixers in your cannabinoid highball. Check out this traditional highball recipe from The Spruce Eats for more context about this style of drink.
You’ll change the flavor to some extent with the syrup or tincture. However, with many flavored beverages including sugar (as opposed to a seltzer or sparkling water) it’s usually a relatively minor difference. Even if you want to skip the sugar, syrups are made with mixing in mind.
Tinctures can have a stronger flavor, so keep that in mind when making your own weed drinks at home.
Want to try something more advanced when making weed-infused drinks at home? You can try adding herbs and spices (perhaps a touch of cinnamon or mint), combining non-alcoholic mixers, and incorporating carbonation.
The most important things to remember when making your own cannabinoid drinks at home are:
- Find a balance. A drink shouldn’t be too sweet, sour, strong, or bitter. Nor should it have any one flavor be too dominant.
- Start with flavors you know you enjoy. Pick a mixer that you know you like, then experiment with adding other flavors to it.
- Be especially careful when it comes to dosage. Cannabinoid syrups are concentrated — a single dose is generally in the low double-digits when measured in milligrams. Start small to avoid having a too-intense experience.
- Start with a single serving, then scale up. Experiment to your heart’s content with different ingredients and flavors in a single glass and serving. When you land on something you like, you can make a larger batch of the same drink with confidence.
Still to sure where to start with making your own cannabinoid beverages? Find some basic recipe suggestions in the last section of this article on THC drinks.
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