Cannabis Beverages, a Practical Guide

Cannabis beverages are THC-infused drinks, like seltzers, lemonades, and iced teas, that you swallow and digest the same way you would a gummy, so they follow an edible's slower timeline. Start small and wait, because New York requires every edible and beverage label to warn that effects may be delayed by 4 or more hours.

Walk the cooler wall at either store and you will find those drinks next to the gummies and chocolates. They look and pour like any other canned drink, and that is exactly what makes them worth a short explanation before you crack one open.

Is a cannabis beverage an edible?

Yes. A cannabis beverage is still swallowed and still processed through digestion, so it belongs in the edible family, not in a category of its own. New York's Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) groups drinks with gummies and baked goods as food products, which are digested and broken down in the liver, and lists their onset at up to 2 hours or more, with effects lasting 4 to 12 hours. That is a very different timeline from smoking or vaping. On its adult-use information page, OCM adds that the effects of cannabis consumed in edibles or beverages "can be delayed and may not be fully felt until four or more hours after consumption."

Some makers say their drinks are built to come on sooner than a traditional gummy, and it is fair to ask a Farm Hand about a specific product. The safest assumption for anything new to you is still the edible mindset: have a little, wait, and see how you feel before you consider more.

What does a cannabis beverage label have to show?

New York's packaging rules set out what must appear on the principal packaging display panel, the one panel meant to face you on the shelf. For edibles and beverages, that panel has to show milligrams of total THC per single serving and per package, the number of servings in the package, and the recommended serving size, along with the brand name and the net quantity. Every serving has to be marked out during production, and no single serving may contain more than 10 milligrams of total THC.

Beverages have one rule of their own: New York's adult-use regulations allow only a single serving per cannabis beverage package, though several beverage products can be sold together, so the milligrams on a can's panel are what the whole can contains. The label also has to carry the warning that effects may be delayed by 4 or more hours, and a scannable code that links to the product's Certificate of Analysis, the lab report our guide to reading a COA walks through.

Read that figure before you open one, and count a pack of several cans as several servings.

Picking a first one

If you are new to beverages, start with the panel: what is in the can is the whole serving. OCM's advice for newer consumers is to start with a low serving size, which can mean taking fewer sips of a beverage rather than the entire serving at once.

Flavor is otherwise a matter of taste. Seltzers lean bright and carbonated, lemonades and iced teas lean toward something you would order in July anyway, and the lineup at both stores rotates with what licensed New York makers have on the truck that week. If you already know you like a certain gummy brand's flavor profile, their beverage line is often a reasonable place to start.

Serving, storing, and sharing responsibly

New York allows adults 21 or older to share cannabis with other adults without payment, and never with anyone younger. Keep any opened or unopened beverage in its original, labeled packaging. Infused cans and bottles can look like ordinary drinks, and the label is what carries the warnings, so a drink out of its package can be mistaken for a regular soda or iced tea by anyone who has not read it, including houseguests, roommates, and kids.

Storage instructions vary by product, and New York requires the label to list proper storage conditions, so check it once when you bring a new one home rather than guessing. Wherever it goes, keep it apart from everyday food and drinks. OCM's safe storage advice is to keep infused drinks out of a shared fridge or pantry, and to keep cannabis locked, out of sight, and out of reach of children and pets.

When does a beverage make more sense than a gummy?

The difference is mostly format and taste: a beverage is one serving in a can or bottle, while a gummy package can hold several servings marked out piece by piece, and both follow the same slower edible timeline. If you are brand new to cannabis in general, our edibles dosing guide covers the start low, go slow approach in more depth, since it applies to a can just as much as it does to a gummy. Gummies and chocolates sit on the edibles menu if you want to compare formats.

Where to start

The beverage cooler rotates constantly at both the Fishkill farm stand and The Barn in New Paltz, so the live beverages menu is the accurate list of what is cold right now. Ask Our Team which can is the most beginner-friendly that day, and check the panel before you pour.